Five time champions Nigeria, Ghana, Mali and Senegal will battle it out for the title of Africa’s best youth team after they qualified for the semifinals.
Group B wrapped up action on Sunday with Mali beating Ghana to keep its 100% record so far while South Africa would rout Zambia in the second match of the group.
Ghana will clash with Nigeria in the first semis while Mali and Senegal face off in the matches that will be played in Senegal.
South Africa may be on their way home after just three games at this years under 20 championship but the Amajita went out in style. A 5-2 thumping of Zambia saw them salvage some pride.
The coach for the under 20 team Thabo Senong, was happy with his team saying it was a good show from them since the boys themselves were happy of waht they had done.
”Its a bit disappointing we scored with transitional play and that is what we lacked to realize in the first two games. It’s a good result to take back home” said coach Thabo.
Zambia will be disappointed to have lost so heavily after narrow defeats to Mali and Ghana which are stronger teams in their first two matches. But the team was quick to look at the positive side of things.
The coach Hector Chilomba has this to say: “We have learned a lot for this tournament both for the technical bench and players… level of competition has gone up so have standards now we go sit and prepare for future tournaments this is water under the bridge we need to encourage the boys and since we are hosting 2017 we need to let them know its not the end.”
The two were Cosafa’s only representation in the competition an improvement from 2011 when no team from the region qualified.
Mali beat Ghana in the other match to finish top of group B and will now play hosts Senegal in the semifinals. The first semifinal will pit Nigeria and Ghana. CK,
