South Africa captain Dean Furman says while AFCON 2015 Group C is on paper the toughest draw, he is excited with the calibre of teams they will face in Equatorial Guinea.
“It is a great draw. It is without doubt very tough but also exciting at the same time. We are really looking forward to the tournament,†said the England-based Furman.
We are thankful that we went through the qualifiers without a loss and that really has enhanced our character. We need to continue from where we left off in the qualifiers
“We put in a lot of hard work in all those matches, now we have to double our efforts because it’s three good teams we will be taking on and they have different styles of play.
"But we are confident that we can do well. We will take some lessons from the qualifiers where we finished without defeat, and improve on them heading to the tournament.
"Good preparations will give us a head start to the tournament.â€
Algeria top the continental rankings and, together with Ghana, took part in the FIFA World Cup earlier this year.
In their last meeting, Algeria and South Africa played to a goalless draw in a friendly last year.
Bafana and Ghana’s last match was in 2010 – it was former coach Pitso Mosimane’s first assignment - and his men won 1-0 courtesy of a Katlego Mphela goal.
South Africa and Senegal will renew their rivalry since they last met two years ago in a friendly, which ended goalless.
2015 AFCON GROUPS:
GROUP A
Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, Congo, Gabon
GROUP B
Zambia, Cape Verde Islands, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tunisia
GROUP C
Ghana, Algeria, South Africa, Senegal
GROUP D
Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Guinea, Mali