Senong’s U-20s were overawed
After being grouped with nations that have done exceptionally well in their respective continental tournaments, the South African Under-20 team was always going to find it tough to make the knockout stages of the Fifa Under-20 World Cup in South Korea, even though coach Thabo Senong assembled a team full of talented players.
Amajita qualified for the competition after finishing fourth in this year’s Caf Africa Cup of Nations, whereas Japan came to the competition as champions of Asia and Uruguay as South American champions, while Italy were runners-up in the Uefa Under-20 Championships.
So it shouldn’t really be that surprising that Senong’s squad returned home yesterday with just one point to their name, following defeats to Japan and Italy, and Saturday’s goalless draw with Uruguay.
The opening match against Japan seemed to be going well, with the team taking an early lead through Grant Magerman in the first half, but the Asian champions came back to win 2-1.
The second group stage match against Italy was different. Knowing they needed to stand a good chance of qualifying for the next phase of the competition, Amajita’s players were nervous.
The introduction of SuperSport United midfielder Teboho Mokoena injected some life into the team, but it was too late as they lost 2-0.
Coming into their last group game against Uruguay, who already booked their spot into the knockout stages after beating both Italy and Japan, many didn’t give Amajita a chance against the South Americans.
Surprisingly, they held their own, but again they weren’t clinical enough as the game ended 0-0.
Going forward, Senong reckons youngsters need to get game time and that maybe more of them playing in Europe at an early age will help improve the national team.
“The next challenge is to make sure that we go into the next round of the tournament of this calibre. We need to close the gap,” said Senong.
The Amajita team is made up of the talented players in the country, with some plying their trade at overseas teams and their performance at the World Cup has some negatives and positive sides they can work on. The Negatives The players’ mental strength is something that really needs to be worked on. They seemed to be scared in some of the games, which resulted in them not playing their normal game.
But again, many of them aren’t used to playing at this level because they play in development sides of their respective clubs. Japan have a 15-year-old at the Under-20 World Cup who has already made an appearance in the senior team. The Positives This is a very young team with talent. Most of them played at the 2015 Under-17 World Cup and we should build on them to be the next national Under-23 squad.
There is a lot of potential in the group and with Vision 2022 on mind, they have to be kept together to represent Bafana Bafana in the future.