Amajita clinch AFCON U20 to make history

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's Under-20 football team made history on Sunday night as they won the Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations for the very first time.

Amajita, as they are affectionately known, beat Morocco 1-0 in the final thanks to a second half goal from midfielder Gomolemo Kekana.

The achievement marks a remarkable turnaround in age group football in the country, as the team had failed to qualify for the previous two editions of this competition, and the last time the SA side had made a final was back in 1997.
 
SA coach Raymond Mdaka says their success was largely down to a collective effort between the players in his squad and the coaching staff.

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"Well done to the boys, they’ve done good. But we also want to thank everybody from the players to the technical team. Starting from the first games in the group stages, you can even the margins in the results, you can see it was [consistently] 1-0. Thank God, we were able to go through on the journey until we came to the final and ended up winning the final," Mdaka said.

There were also individual accolades to celebrate as defender Tylon Smith, who scored the winning goal in the semi-final against Nigeria, was named Player of the Tournament. Fletcher Smythe-Lowe, who produced a Man of the Match performance in the final, was also awarded as the prize for the tournament’s best goalkeeper.

The victory was made even more extraordinary as a number of key players, such as Shandre Campbell, who plays for Club Brugge in Belgium and Orlando Pirates defender Mbekezeli Mbokazi could not join the team for the tournament due to club commitments.

The next big assignment from Mdaka’s team is the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Chile in September.