27 July 2019 – CHAN team coach David Notoane is confident the youngsters he selected for this assignment will stand their own in Sunday’s first leg match against Lesotho at Setsoto Stadium.

The match kicks-off at 14h00 and the return leg will be played next Sunday at Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto.

“I think so far in terms of what we are trying to do, I think we tick the boxes on most important elements of the game on how we want to defend and to develop that understanding,” he said after the final training session at the match venue.

“After Friday and Saturday’s sessions, which gives us two sessions at the match venue, the process is slowly coming together. Also in terms of finding the right combinations and permutations, we are happy that we think we have a team that can go there and give us a good performance and hopefully give us the result we require,” he added.

“What is exciting is seeing some younger players and they are settling in very quickly, not showing nerves and first time coming into the national team, more so wearing the senior jersey.

“I think we identified players with the right character and it will be interesting to see how they react in terms of mentality on the match day. If the character, we saw at training is indeed the character that will give us a performance that we are looking forward to on match day, what more can one ask for,” said Notoane.

He said playing away from home, scoring one or two away goals would be priceless.

“We are playing away from home and given the short preparation period, we have to manage the game, make sure we don’t open ourselves but not limit ourselves to just defending. Our last training (at match venue) had lots of possession-based play looking for penetration. That should give us an opportunity to come away with a vital away goal or two and that is what we came here for.

“If we achieve that, it will give us a very good opportunity going into the second leg,” concluded Notoane.