"Numbers don't lie, Men lie, Women lie, but numbers don't lie" - Max Holloway.
Bafana Bafana have failed to beat Cape Verde in their last 3 encounters as Cape Verde has beaten Bafana Bafana twice already and drew once.

These are the numbers that most South Africans will not be happy to see however, as Holloway said "numbers don't lie."

The only consolation is the fact that those who have been following football for a long time will tell that when it comes to the knockout stages in any competition, form goes out the window.

A former Mamelodi Sundowns coach once said, "The group stages will deceive you all the time, you can win six out of six and stay number 1, but lets go to the knockout stages."

Cape Verde comes into the match against Bafana Bafana having not tasted defeat in this tournament, they qualified top of the group where they were tussling with giants of African football in Ghana and Egypt.

Over the past 3 encounters, Cape Verde has proved to be somewhat of a bogey team for South Africa and this will give them a lot of confidence going into this quarterfinal match.

As for Bafana Bafana, they will be asking themselves a question, what can they do to cast away the spell?

However, with Hugo Broos at the helm, this Bafana Bafana team seem fearless, they have grown stronger as the tournament progresses and this was evident when they eliminated the highly ranked Morocco.

All the players have to bring their A-game against Cape Verde as there will be no room for errors.

Mothobi Mvala and Grant Kekana have to keep an eye on the former Manchester United striker, Tiago "Bebe" Manuel, he is a very experienced and dangerous striker, good with free-kicks as well.

Their captain Ryan Mendes will have to be closely watched too because he makes good runs from wide positions and through the centre as well.

Steven Moreira is strong both in his attacking and defending duties at the right back position, therefore Broos will have to give Percy Tau strict instructions of tracking Moreira whenever he makes those marauding runs on the right flank to ensure that Aubrey Modiba doesn't find himself in 2v1 situations just like it happened against Morocco.

Bafana Bafana have shown that they can defend very well in this tournament because they have not conceded a goal in their last 3 matches and these numbers will certainly give every Bafana Bafana fan some form of encouragement.

This gives hope that they are going to be able to deal with the threat of Cape Verde's forwards.

They also have players who are capable of pulling a rabbit out of a hat at any given time during the match, Themba Zwane and Teboho Mokoena have shown that they win matches for Bafana Bafana, Evidence Makgopa also opened his account and surely he will be looking to score more goals.

Having seen how Broos operates, it is highly unlikely that he might change his starting eleven because he is definitely not going to try to fix what is not broken.