Mamelodi Sundowns winger Thapelo Maseko has suffered a hamstring injury and will play no further part in Bafana Bafana’s AFCON campaign.

Coach Hugo Broos confirmed the injury when he spoke to the media ahead of the game on Tuesday, adding that, given the advanced stage of the tournament, no replacement would be called up.

“He has a grade three muscle injury, so the tournament is over for him,” confirmed Broos.

“But he will stay with us — he won’t go to South Africa. And we won’t replace him.

“There are problems with a visa and also a flight, and if we replace him, that player would arrive maybe on Thursday or at worst on Friday, so we don’t want to do that.

“And we also have opportunities to solve that problem from within the squad.”

Aside from the injury to Maseko, who has featured regularly as a substitute throughout the tournament, Broos said that Bafana Bafana were in a good place ahead of Wednesday’s semi-final encounter with Nigeria.

“We are very happy and motivated that we play the semifinals of AFCON.

“For many people it was unexpected, but we did it and that means South Africa became a good team.

“It’s also more than 20 years ago that South Africa played a semifinal and even more for a final, so that means we have got a lot of motivation.

“We are playing against a very good team that is number six in the African rankings and that has a lot of players based abroad.

“It’s a similar situation as against Morocco, playing against players who play in big teams in Europe.

“So, for many people Nigeria would be the favourites, but as you know in football it’s not always the favourite who wins,” he said.

“We don’t fear them, but we know that there are good players in their team.

“So, we will try to do something that they won’t be so dangerous. And we also know that their defence is also very good.

“But again, those were things that were also said about Morocco, and we won.”