Amajimbos jet off to Qatar for FIFA U17 World Cup

The national U17 team, Amajimbos, are set to jet off to Qatar on Thursday to compete in the 2025 FIFA Under-17 World Cup.

Coach Vela Khumalo’s charges will line up against the best U17 national teams in the tournament, which will be held from November 3–27, 2025.

South Africa has been drawn into Group A alongside hosts Qatar, Italy, and Bolivia.

The team concluded their training camp in Johannesburg this week. As part of their preparations, Amajimbos played a friendly game against Malawi this past Sunday, and faced the Kaizer Chiefs DStv Diski Challenge team on Wednesday, October 29.

Khumalo said that while there is room for improvement following the match against the Kaizer Chiefs DDC side, he was generally happy with the performance.

“Even though we played very, very well against Kaizer Chiefs, a strong DDC team that is going to Manchester, we cannot get carried away because we played well here. There are certain things that we still need to work on,” he stated.

The South Africans will play their opening match of the tournament against Bolivia on Monday.

Khumalo remains optimistic about the team's chances in the group stage.

“I think from what I saw, and I’ve been following Bolivia and the other teams, I think we stand a good chance of coming out of the group if we can apply ourselves,” he continued.

“We can get out of the group from what I saw. But you never know if that was the true reflection of the teams or they were still preparing. But honestly speaking, we stand a good chance of going out of the group.”

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