From the beginning of June, top SAFA Women National coaches and National selectors will be travelling to all nine provinces to identify talent for the South African U20 and U17 Women’s National Teams, as well as for the High Performance Centre (HPC) intake for 2018.
The aim is to find players who will form part of the squads because the U20 and U17 World Cup tournament will take place in 2018 and this will help with finalizing teams for the qualifiers.
“This is the first talent Identification of its kind for women’s football and will ensure that we have seen all possible candidates for the respective national teams and HPC. We want to ensure that everyone gets a chance to be selected and we don’t leave good players behind, as we want to qualify for these two prestigious tournaments. Qualification will give our players more experience so that when they get to Banyana Banyana they are used to high-level competition. The more we play in these tournaments the better our players will become,” said Fran Hilton-Smith, SAFA Assistant Technical Director.
Top CAF A Licence women coaches have also been appointed as talent scouts in the Provinces and they will also be in attendance.
The first Talent ID will be held in KwaZulu Natal on Saturday, 3 June 2017 and will then move to other provinces.
Talent ID dates and provinces
Date | Province |
3 June | KwaZulu-Natal |
10 June | Gauteng |
17 June | Western Cape |
24 June | Eastern Cape |
1 July | North West |
8 July | Northern Cape |
5 August | Free State |
12 August | Mpumalanga |
19 August | Limpopo |