Amajita overcome challenges to achieve World Cup qualification

This follows last night’s, had fought 1-0 win in extra-time over a tough Democratic Republic of Congo side, in an U20 AFCON quarterfinal at the Suez Canal stadium, in Ismailia. 

Substitute Thabang Mahlangu netted the only goal in this game, as Amajita qualify for the fifth time to the U20 World Cup. 

Mdaka says the main objective of this project has been achieved.

"Well, honestly, it was not an easy journey, but I remember in our first camp that we did, we had a program to say, we need to qualify for COSAFA, then AFCON then we also need to qualify for the World Cup and this is the main objective,” Mdaka said.

“I understand countries or other teams might want to win the trophy, but we compare it; this is the core of the tournament. So, I think it's a job well done to the boys."

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Amajita, who last qualified for the World Cup in Poland in 2019, will now meet Nigeria in the semi-final on Thursday at the same venue.

Mdaka says the opposition planned against them perfectly and they had to improvise for this game.

He says character from the team also helped big time.

"Indeed, it was a tough game, something that we knew obviously, in the first interview, I said it's a 90 minute thing. It's not about a draw where you can get points, so sometimes tactically it might not work out but you need to have the character,” he added.

“If you check the first half, they put us under pressure. I think they did very good analysis on how we played but second half we came back. We were able to close the gap but at the same time making sure that we become very disciplined more especially in defence. “And also at the same time, when we are caught up, then we want character from the boys to say we need to die for it. We could see some of the balls that we blocked that they were attempting to score.

“So, that's the character that we told ourselves to go on with, but other than that, it was a very difficult match."