South African Football Association (SAFA) President Danny Jordaan has backed the SA U17 side to come right in the FIFA World Cup in Doha, Qatar.
Amajimbos have reached the round of 32 stage and will come up against Japan on Saturday, with kick-off set for 15:30 SA time.
Vela Khumalo’s boys managed a win, a draw and a defeat in their three group stage matches, and the four points were enough to see them advance to the knockout stage.
“You can see this team can play football. (Former Arsenal manager) Arsene Wenger said so in Morocco already after he watched them, and he said this is a very good team,” said Jordaan.
“Even the FIFA observers at the game were very impressed and said this team can play… I am very happy to see how this team has emerged and become an integrated, structured unit,” he added.
The African continent is well represented in the knockout phase, with as many as eight teams, and some will be up against each other for a place in the last 16.
On Friday, Zambia will kick off the round of 32 with a clash against Mali, while Egypt takes on Switzerland.
Later on the same day, Morocco will face the United States of America (USA), and the following day – Saturday, Senegal versus Uganda will be one to watch, before Amajimbos entertain Japan. Burkina Faso has a date with Germany.
Tunisia will then take on Austria in the later clash on Saturday.
Jordaan added that African football, at the junior level, is on the rise, and this augurs well for the future.
“One of the persons whose brainchild this is, is Arsene Wenger. He had many meetings with us, and they are now looking at starting at U15. In Miami, there was a workshop about this, and I’m certain that by next year, they will announce an U15 tournament on a global basis. The gap between European and African teams is that European teams play regular competition at the junior level – and CAF did not,” he noted.
“But once CAF president Patrice Motsepe took over, he recognised that the first thing to do is to deal with school sport, and he took his own money and invested in school sport, and that was a kickstart of the improvement of African teams in junior competitions and finally senior competitions.”
