It promises to be the fiercest battle that the South Africa’s Bafana Bafana will fight in recent time. The initial trail blazers in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations Group E qualifiers suddenly found themselves struggling for survival on the last match day.

The South Africans were off to a good start getting all points in their away duel with Nigeria which also translated to their first ever competitive victory over the domineering Super Eagles.

Bafana Bafana soon went into coma, turning into a laborious outfit and escaped with a goalless draw against Libya on match day two. The Super Eagles on the other hand bounced back with an away 3-0 defeat of Seychelles, the same team that South Africa could only manage a goalless draw with.

South Africa’s lifeline in Sunday’s encounter with Libya was the annulment of goals scored by the Super Eagles in their encounter last November.

It is the encounter that gave a point advantage over Libya. But the Libyans are handicapped. They play their home matches in Tunisia. This is what South Africa hope to exploit.

Sunday’s African Nations Cup showdown against Libya marks the third time Bafana Bafana have had the good fortune of playing a key away qualifier on a neutral venue.

Bafana were successful on the two previous occasions. The last Group E qualifier for South Africa in the 2019 African Nations Cup preliminaries is being played in Sfax‚ Tunisia‚ because of the tenuous security situation in Libya‚ who have not been allowed to play any internationals at home for more than a decade.

Libya need to win the match and ordinarily would look to use home advantage in Tripoli to maximum benefit‚ with an intimidating and hostile crowd to shake up the visitors.

But Sunday’s match at the Stade Taieb El Mniri is likely to have a modest crowd with almost all the edge taken off from the stands.

It was also the case in April‚ 1997 when Bafana happily skipped a trip to Kinshasa and again in 2013 when the conflict in the Central African Republic also sent South Africa to a neutral venue.

In the 1998 World Cup qualifiers‚ Bafana were tenuously placed with a win‚ draw and loss after their first three Group C qualifiers against Zaire‚ Zambia and Congo-Brazzaville.

The game against the Congolese was the infamous battle of Pointe Noire when guns were stuck in the ribs of South African officials and the players kicked to bits in a game that was lost 2-0.

Clive Barker’s team then faced having to go to an even more hostile environment to Kinshasa to meet Zaire‚ who were also desperately looking for points.

But in Zaire‚ Laurent Kabila’s rebel army had made significant advances in their bid to oust the Mobutu Sese Seko regime and were marching towards Kinshasa‚ with an imminent battle for the capital forcing FIFA to change the venue of the game.

It was moved to Lome in Togo where Barker famously dropped Neil Tovey as skipper and installed Lucas Radebe and South Africa won the game with Doctor Khumalo at his best‚ scoring first and then providing the cross for Phil Masinga to head home the winner in a 2-1 victory.

It was the last game for Zaire‚ after which Kabila overthrew Mobutu and changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bafana would go on to beat Zambia and Congo Brazzaville at Soccer City‚ winning their last three qualifiers to book their place at the World Cup in France.

In 2013‚ South Africa’s World Cup hopes were already in peril after draws against Ethiopia‚ after which Pitso Mosimane was fired‚ and then Botswana.

New coach Gordon Igesund won the home qualifier against the Central African Republic in Cape Town but had to keep winning the rest.

The reverse fixture against the Central African Republic in June 2013 was moved from Bangui‚ because of rebel fighting and the massacre of SANDF troops‚ who were in the country in a peacekeeping role in the country‚ saw the match moved by FIFA to Yaounde in Cameroon.

There South Africa won 3-0 to keep alive their hoops‚ only to lose the next game in Addis Ababa to Ethiopia and be embarrassingly eliminated from the race for the 2014 finals in Brazil‚ having just hosted the previous World Cup.