For Furman, as Bafana prepared for their opening fixture against the Ivory Coast on Monday, the top priority right now was to get out of the group stages and thereafter, he believed, anything was possible.

“At the moment, we are not looking past that,” he said.

“I don’t think we are favourites. There are certain traditional powerhouses of African football, but we are happy with where we are. We know we have quality in this team.

“We are in a strong group including Morocco and Ivory Coast and not discarding a strong Namibia side.

“So we are not concerned about what people say about the favourite tag, we just know that if we perform to our potential, we can achieve big things in this tournament.”

Furman said the Bafana team had been working really hard over the last few weeks and, if they play to their potential at Afcon, then something special might be in the offing.

“The pre-camp in Dubai was very good, due to the heat factor,” he said. “We got used to the heat and the good thing is that it is 10 degrees cooler here (in Egypt), so hopefully that issue (of acclimatisation) can be put to one side.

Furman, though, also admitted that, while things were looking good, there were areas that needed improvement.

“We have taken most of what we need to work on into our training sessions and hopefully when Ivory Coast comes (on Monday), we are more than ready and confident,” he said.

“We believe we have a strong team and we are coming into this tournament with a lot of confidence based on our qualification campaign, where we were undefeated.

“And not forgetting our victory in Nigeria, our performance against them at home and our crucial victory against Libya away. All this give us a lot to be confident about.”

- ANA