Bafana Bafana play in the opening match of the tournament against co-hosts Mexico at the famed Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on June 11, before a meeting with a yet-to-be-determined European qualifier in Atlanta, United States, a week later.
Their final Group A game is back in Mexico against South Korea on June 24 in Guadalupe, part of the greater Monterrey metropolitan area.
SAFA have decided to base the side at the Pachuca Universidad del Futbol, a football and sports sciences academy aligned to local club CF Pachuca, and which has an extensive campus of football pitches.
Bafana will stay at the Camino Real Pachuca, a five-star hotel surrounded by gardens and forests, and situated 5km from Pachuca, which is the capital and largest city of the east-central Mexican state of Hidalgo.
Pachuca is located about 90 kilometres north of Mexico City via Mexican Federal Highway 85, meaning easy travel for Bafana to get to their opening game.
It is a one-and-a-half-hour flight to Monterrey for their third game, and around three hours by air to Atlanta.
They will use the facilities of the local club CF Pachuca, who compete in Liga MX, the top division of Mexican football, and were founded in 1892, making them the country’s oldest club.
Pachuca sits at an altitude of 2,432m, which is significantly higher than Johannesburg (1,753m), but boasts a cool summer climate with high rainfall. The average daily temperature in June is 22 degrees Celsius, allowing Bafana to escape what will be the blazing heat in many other centres across North America.
Bafana are back at the World Cup for the first time since they were hosts in 2010. This will be their fourth visit to the tournament after first-round exits in 1998, 2002 and 16 years ago.