Amajita prepare for Congo
The South African national Under- 20 team (Amajita) have started with preparations for the second leg of the African Youth Championship (AYC) qualifier against Congo.
The match is scheduled to take place on Saturday at the Bidvest Wits University grounds.
Kick-off is at 19h00.
The team began camp on last Sunday with medical check-ups taking place on the same day.
South Africa managed to get an away goal during the 1st leg last month in Congo
The Amajita squad is in ahead of the much anticipated encounter with hopes of overturning the average having secured an away goal.
Coach Solly Luvhengo says he and his technical team will do all in their powers to ensure not only a good performance from the young South Africans but also get a positive result to progress in the competition.
Luvhengo says despite not having all the players on the first day, the mood in camp is very good and that the whole team is looking forward to a good game.
"It is a satisfying environment with regards to the energy and overall mood, we expect it to rise even higher when all the players report for camp, we expect the last bunch on Wednesday. We also had to consider the fact that the PSL season is about to begin and this means we could not get all the players we would have liked to have for this camp.
Lebo Ngobeni (Tuks), Junior Sibande (Tuks), Steve Hoffman (Wits), Asive Langwe (Wits) and Keagan Dolly of Ajax could not join us but these are the type of inconveniences you have to learn to plan for as a national team coach so we are working on finding suitable replacements to consolidate and complement the current team.
The coach also says he was satisfied with the team's performance away and will be hoping to build from that.
"Not much went wrong during the first leg; we just didn't play hard enough to win. We scored first and conceded from two set pieces so maybe we should just be on the lookout for such mistakes going into this second leg," said Luvhengo.
Luvhengo says there is no reason to panic nor make any drastic changes to the team for this encounter.
"In my view, all the players played well and represented the country well, it was just not our day. There is certainly no need to panic, we have an away goal and we should use that as a stepping stone in achieving our mandate which is qualifying for Algeria as this will also help us in qualifying for the World Cup in Turkey because the top four teams in the AYC automatically qualify for the World Cup," said Luvhengo.
Having coached the South African national Under-17 team, Luvhengo says this is an advantage for him and his technical team as these players know what is expected from them.
"it is always a pleasure seeing these players improve technically and also grow as players this is very good for me and my team in as far as the game plan and ideas are concerned, they know what we want from them and how we want it implemented. 60 to 70 percent of these boys I have worked with before and as I said before, it helps a lot," added the coach.
With no injury worries for the team, Luvhengo says the team will definitely do all in their powers to win the match and that the public should rally behind the team with all the support the young boys and act as the 12th player.
