To qualify for major tournaments it is essential for teams to win their home games. South Africa finished an embarrassing third in the qualifiers for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations finals, despite losing only one game.Shakes Mashaba's side were unlucky to be held to an away draw in Cameroon and scored four goals in Banjul against Gambia. But that they failed to win a single match at home proved their downfall.South Africa drew all three of their home encounters and, because of this inability to do the business in their back yard, were out of the running before the qualifiers ended.Now Bafana are battling for a World Cup place and have shown their potential at the start of the group phase of the African qualifiers with a hard-fought draw in Burkina Faso last month.Victory was snatched from their grasp in stoppage time.South Africa play their second Group D match tomorrow at home .Senegal, with a bevy of European-based stars, are favourites to win the group and go to Russia, but have flattered to deceive in the past.On paper they are among the strongest African sides, spearheaded by Liverpool's Sadio Mane. But they have not yet delivered on their potential.However, given South Africa's inability to capitalise on home advantage, Senegal have every chance of coming away with a result in Polokwane.They are ahead in the standings after winning their opening group game last month. Bafana can ill afford failure.Their World Cup hopes will be left hanging by a thread and Mashaba will likely be shown the door if success is not forthcoming.The game is the first match in the featured Soccer 6 pool.Let's look at the others:M2 Uganda v Congo:Uganda beat the Congo 4-0 the last time they hosted them in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers in 2012. Uganda are in January headed to the 2017 Afcon finals in Gabon, but Congo did not qualify.M3 Cameroon v Zambia:Cameroon have won three and drawn one of their last four fixtures. Zambia changed their coach last month, but have now gone four games without success with new appointee Wedson Nyirenda losing both his first two matches in charge.M4 Nigeria v Algeria:Nigeria opened their World Cup group with away success in Zambia last month, but Algeria were held at home by Cameroon after which they fired their manager.Belgian George Leekens is the new man in charge.M5 Cape Verde Islands v Burkina Faso:These two teams share South Africa's group in the World Cup qualifiers. Cape Verde lost last in their opening group game to Senegal, while Burkina Faso needed an equaliser against Bafana.M6 Morocco v Ivory Coast:Morocco are led by French coach Herve Renard, who was in charge of the Ivorians when they were crowned African champions in 2015...