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5 players who could win it for Bafana Bafana

Cape Town - Ahead of their Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) quarter-final clash against Nigeria, Sport24 looks at 5 players who could prove to be match-winners for Bafana Bafana.

Stuart Baxter's men face the Super Eagles with a semi-final spot up for grabs when the two sides face off at the Cairo International Stadium on Wednesday.

Kick-off is at 21:00 SA time.

Here are 5 players who could win it for Bafana:

Percy Tau

Bafana Bafana's talisman proved instrumental against Egypt with every dangerous attacking move going through the former Mamelodi Sundowns wide-man. Tau forced Egypt goalkeeper Mohamed El Shenawy into a fantastic save from a direct free-kick and often stretched their defence throughout the 90 minutes.

Tau is unquestionably Bafana Bafana's most dangerous threat going forward and is able to find pockets of space between the defensive lines to go alongside his quality on the ball.

Baxter will be aiming to find a way to curtail Nigeria's main attacking threats while at the same time utilise Tau's quality to enable the attacker to impact the game.

Lebo Mothiba

To get the best out of Tau - Lebo Mothiba has a massive role to play as a target man for Baxter's side. A fair bit of a lone striker's job is to create space for and bring his team-mates into play. The physically intimidating Mothiba did this to perfection against the Egyptians. With Former Bafana Bafana target man George Dearnley putting it best after their impressive 1-0 win:

Thembinkosi Lorch

The Orlando Pirates attacker proved the match-winner against Egypt and contributed to Bafana Bafana's overall improvement going forward on his AFCON debut. All we need is... for him to do it again against the Super Eagles.

Ronwen Williams

The G.O.A.T at saving penalties in the Absa Premiership! South African fans were surely growing in confidence on Saturday evening - as the last-16 clash seemed to be heading into extra-time and a penalty shootout - fully aware of Williams' capabilities in saving penalties.

Williams has made a habit of saving crucial penalties for SuperSport United, so much so that it can't be put down to luck or mere coincidence. He proved the match-winner in recent times in an MTN8 final in 2017 and before that in the Telkom Knockout in 2014.

Williams' exploits have gained so much of a reputation in local football that a SuperSport tactic is to actually play for penalties in the dying stages of knockout games. Hopefully, he can pull off similar performances if Bafana find themselves headed for penalties against Nigeria.

Ronwen Williams

Bongani Zungu

Zungu put in a much-improved display against Egypt and it was his pass that proved decisive in Bafana Bafana's sweeping counter-attacking move that devastated the Egyptian defence.

The Armiens midfielder also scored the decisive goal against Namibia in the group stages so does offer an attacking threat going forward that could hurt the Nigerian defence.

Bongani Zungu

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