World Cup experience and Witbooi boost Mdaka’s Amajita COSAFA U20 squad

Mdaka is expected to finalise his 23-man squad this week, as they head to defend the title they won in Mozambique two years ago and qualify for the AFCON next year, where the aim is also to defend their maiden continental title. 

Mdaka says they have been able to secure some of the players from the previous Amajita team...

"We could not get Fletcher, but we managed to get Lazola Maku who played all the games last season. We are waiting on Madiba from Brazil and he'll hopefully arrive tomorrow. We also have a few players from the PSL teams, but we couldn't get a number of players who are playing in the NFD. We are making arrangements with other players who we feel will be key."

With the tournament scheduled from the 18th until the 28th of this month, it means that it will be played just three days before the international break and finish when the break is still active. This has allowed Mdaka to make some arrangements with Cape Town City to have their star player, Emille Witbooi, available for the second game against Angola and going forward into the rest of the competition...

"We had some discussions with Cape Town City and we made them understand our programmes so that we can be able to help each other. We agreed that for a player of Witbooi's quality not to play the U20 tournaments could be a big issue."

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Amajita are in the same group as Lesotho, Angola and Eswatini, with three group winners and the best runners-up going through to the semi-finals. 

Only the two finalists will qualify for the AFCON, and Mdaka says they will be taking all their games seriously, but acknowledges that Angola will be their toughest opponent.

The team will be captained by Lazola Maku, who recently returned from successful trials in Austria, and was part of the victorious Amajita squad at the last U20 AFCON. He also went to the U20 World Cup.