12 February 2021 –The South African U17 Men’s National Team (Amajimbos) have completed the first phase of their U17 Africa Cup of Nations preparations and Head Coach Vela Khumalo has finalized his 21-man squad for the tournament which will run from 13 -31 March 2021 in Morocco.
Amajimbos will return to camp on 22 February 2021, where they will conclude their second phase of preparations before heading to Morocco.
Amajimbos won the 2020 COSAFA Cup and will be one of the two COSAFA teams to take part at the u17 junior AFCON tournament alongside Zambia in this 14th Edition of the continental showpiece.
This tournament is normally used as qualification for the FIFA U-17 World Cup tournament that was scheduled for Peru. However, the world governing body has since cancelled the U-17 World Cup due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Head Coach Vela Khumalo is happy with the progress of the players and the fact that they have managed to work on the players’ fitness during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have had an intense two weeks of training, where our main focus was building on the players’ fitness. We all understand that these have been difficult times with the lack of football being played due to the pandemic however; we have managed to get some work done,” said Khumalo.
“Initially we brought in 32 players into the camp and evaluated them for the first week of the camp. We then released 10 players and continued with our program where we managed to get two practice matches against Mamelodi Sundowns and SuperSport United,’’ he said.
‘’We then invited another five players into the camp to have a final look at them before concluding the AFCON squad,’’ added Khumalo.
“We will now have a one week rest and report back to camp on 22 February 2021 for the second phase of preparations, where we will be hoping to get a few international friendlies before reporting to our CAF base in Morocco ahead of the tournament.’’