While Nigeria have been the dominant side in this fixture, South Africa have closed the gap to them in the last couple of years and showed that during the AFCON, where it took penalties to find a winner when these sides met.
We are expecting another closely contested matchup this Friday and feel there will be nothing to separate these two African powerhouses at the final whistle.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Nigeria win with a probability of 56.83%. A draw had a probability of 25.1% and a win for South Africa had a probability of 18.03%.
The most likely scoreline for a Nigeria win was 1-0 with a probability of 15.1%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-0 (11.95%) and 2-1 (9.16%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (11.57%), while for a South Africa win it was 0-1 (7.31%). The actual scoreline of 1-1 was predicted with an 11.6% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted a 1-1 draw for this match.
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