South Africa U-20 coach Shakes Mashaba says his team has what it takes to beat south Africa.
The South African Men’s U20 National Team, Amajita, have arrived safely in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
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| South Africa coach Mashaba |
The South Africans are there to play their East African counterparts in a second round, first leg 2015 Senegal African Youth Championship qualifier, which will be played on Sunday, 11 May. Kick-off is at 4pm Ethiopian time (3pm SA time).
After a five-hour flight from Johannesburg, Amajita retired for the night and will have full training session later today (Friday, 9 May).
Head coach Shakes Mashaba is confident that he has the squad to do the duty, despite not having all the players at his disposal. Certain top players were not released by their clubs.
"I believe this is a good chance for the boys we picked up at the Safa U19 Championships held recently in Bloemfontein to show what they are made of and show if they really belong to the national team.
"The good thing though about this team is that we have the spine of the team that won the U20 Cosafa Cup in Lesotho last year and I am positive they can do the business,” said Mashaba.
"We however, need not underestimate Ethiopia. Remember their senior side defeated Bafana Bafana and their juniors defeated the Seychelles home and away, which tells you that they have something to offer. We can’t ignore that."
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| Ethiopia impressed world football in the last two years |
Mashaba said Amajita needed to pick off from where they left off in the Cosafa Cup tournament.
"We have to improve from the Cosafa Cup victory and show that it was not a fluke. We need to qualify for the African Youth Championship tournament and if we do well there we will be playing in the U20 World Cup tournament.
"The first step is to win our away games starting with this one on Sunday. If we do that we will increase our chances of qualifying for the Youth Championships. We have to apply the same positive winning mentality we used to win the Cosafa Cup.
The team will have the last training session on Saturday (10 May) at the match venue.
Source: superspo