adminBafana (The Boys) won the competition 17 years ago with a 2-0 triumph over Tunisia.
“When the national team runs on the field and there are tens of thousands of people blowing their vuvuzelas (plastic horns), we will be very difficult to defeat,” coach Gordon Igesund told reporters.
“If my boys get the backing of all South Africans, and continue to display a positive attitude, we really can go all the way and conquer Africa,” the silver haired 56-year-old added.
Igesund won the South African Premiership with a record four clubs and is now trying to transfer the midas touch to a national team that has steadily slipped since 1996 when then-president Nelson Mandela handed Neil Tovey the trophy.
South Africa are in Group A with Angola, former champions Morocco and debutants Cape Verde Islands and have not lost to any of their rivals in a competitive or friendly match.
Bafana Bafana defeated Angola en route to the 1996 title and overcame Morocco in a tense quarter-final two years later before losing to Egypt in a Ouagadougou final.
But South African supporters have had little to cheer since with a 2000 semi-final loss to co-hosts Nigeria followed by a last-eight exit against hosts Mali two years later.
Worse was to follow with three consecutive first round exits from 2004, and the country did not even qualify for the 2010 and 2012 events, with farcical scenes accompanying the failure to reach Gabon/Equatorial Guinea a year ago.
South African players, coaches and officials did not understand the widely used head-to-head rule and played for a draw at home to Sierra Leone, believing a point would suffice.
Bafana players danced and sang their way around the stadium, convinced they had succeeded, only to discover later that minnows Niger had pipped them at the post.
Igesund enters the 2013 Cup without the best known South African footballer .— AFP.
Online Reporter
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