Senong has a two-year plan for his Amajita side

Tshepo Ntsoelengoe

South African national Under-20 team coach Thabo Senong says the next two years will be crucial for

with the Under-20 Caf Africa Youth Championships (AYC) and the Fifa Under-20 World Cup coming up in 2019.

Senong has started rebuilding and says it is important to select players who will still be eligible to play for the next two years looking at the AYC in Tanzania and the World Cup with the host nation yet to be announced.

“We have to make sure that 80 or 90% of the team are players who we will be able to keep for the next two years. It will be a very important two-year cycle for Amajita, we are talking Afcon and World Cup in 2019. We are rebuilding a new team, that is why we allowed some of these boys to play friendly games in England and Brazil earlier this year,” said Senong.

The process of rebuilding has already started with Amajita set to play in the Cosafa youth championships next month in Zambia. Senong, however, has a minor headache in choosing the new skipper ahead of their international friendly with Lesotho today in Maseru with most of his players showing leadership qualities.

“We have a good group of many leaders which makes it a bit difficult for the staff to identify a new captain, but we will select a captain who will lead us during the Lesotho game,” Senong said.