Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter goes into Friday’s must-win World Cup qualifier against Senegal with a mixed record in competitive fixtures over his two spells in charge of the side.

Baxter has led South Africa in 13 qualifiers for the World Cup in the preliminaries for the 2006 and 2017 finals‚ and has managed six wins‚ six defeats and a single draw.

He has also seen his side outscored with their opponents managing 19 goals versus the 17 for Bafana.

Those wins have come against Cape Verde Islands (twice)‚ Burkina Faso (twice) and Uganda (twice)‚ while the defeats have come versus Ghana (twice)‚ Cape Verde (twice)‚ DR Congo and Burkina Faso.

In all competitive matches during his two spells in charge‚ Baxter has 14 wins‚ eight losses and six draws in 28 games.

He has only been in charge of one match in the African Nations Cup preliminaries‚ the excellent 2-0 away victory in Nigeria in June.

The rest of the competitive games are made up of fixtures in the CONCACAF Gold Cup‚ COSAFA Cup and African Nations Championship.

That does include an impressive win over Mexico with a second-string side in 2005.

It is also fair to point out that many games in this category saw him forced to select second‚ or even third-string squads given the nature of the competitions and the availability of players.

The best yardstick therefore is the record in World Cup and Nations Cup qualifiers‚ where he is just ahead of the 50 percent win ratio combined.

He will need to improve that significantly if Bafana are to get the two wins they need home and away to Senegal to qualify for the World Cup in Russia. 

BAXTER’S RECORD IN COMPETITIVE MATCHES

WORLD CUP QUALIFIERSP W D L GF GA13 6 1 6 17 19

NATIONS CUP QUALIFIERSP W D L GF GA1 1 0 0 2 0

OTHERSP W D L GF GA14 7 5 2 21 13