AFCON 2023: South Afrca, DR Congo defenders optimistic ahead of third-place clash

DR Congo defender Dylan Batubinsika and South Africa’s Siyanda Xulu are confident ahead of their third-place playoff on Saturday night at Stade Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Abidjan.

DR Congo had a remarkable run in the ongoing AFCON edition, as they managed to manoeuvre their way to the semis only to fall to Ivory Coast.

Batubinsika, however, feels that they are disappointed for not reaching the final because they had the potential to.

“We’ll be disappointed for a while because we had the potential to go all the way,” Batubinsika told CAFOnline.

The Leopards will play Bafana Bafana in a bronze battle, and the St Ettienne defender is hoping to win the medal.

“I think we have a mixture of feelings about the elimination, but our ambition is to go and get this medal. We have to stay mobilised to at least finish in third place.

“We have to be proud of what we’ve done so far; we’ve had a great run; we would have liked to go all the way, but that wasn’t the case,” he added.

Xulu exudes confidence

On the other hand, Xulu said reaching the semi-final is a dream, even though they wanted to appear at the ultimate stage.

“We had our own goal as a team. We wanted to go as far as we could. We know very well about our quality, especially from the coach, who is one person who has always believed in us as a team.

“To go this far was our objective. Reaching the semi-final is a dream. Yes, we wanted to take it home, but we couldn’t, but we can be proud of the performance,” Xulu said.

This was South Africa’s first semi-final appearance since 2000, when they went ahead to lose the third-place playoff against Tunisia. After a 2-2 draw, the Carthage Eagles took home the bronze medal following a 4-3 penalty shootout in their favour.