Young Zebras seek regional glory

Innocent Morapedi next week embarks on unchartered grounds as national Under 20 team head coach. The smart tactician, taking over from Odirile Matlhaku, leads his young troops to Lesotho where they will attempt to reach the finals of the COSAFA Under 20 Championship that will be played from December 3 to 14 in the two cities of Mafeteng and Maseru.

Prior to the announcement that the tournament would return for this year, the local youth side had been idle, with no activity taking place around the team since 2011 when it won Bronze at the Gaborone version of the tournament that was won by multiple winners Zambia. Morapedi admits that the lengthy idle span for the players could be a factor to worry about going into the competition, but he is equally satisfied that he will have a good compliment of players who were in the Under 17 team that in April this year played at the CAF Under 17 Championships in Morocco. Players from that team were full of promise, and had any deliberate plan to keep them training and working together been made, there could be hope for a gold medal at this year’s COSAFA youth competition.

Over eight of those Under 17 team players have been included into the Lesotho-bound side and are expected to easily walk into the first eleven. It should be noted that this is a bunch of players who brushed aside tough opposition such as Algeria en route to the finals where they eventually faced other giants that include Tunisia, Morocco and Gabon. The experience from those games could be invaluable going into the COSAFA championship where their opponents in Group D are Swaziland and Zimbabwe. But Morapedi will almost be starting afresh because the players in question have been left to their own devices since that Morocco expedition.

Even more worrying, as they go back into the deeper end next week in Lesotho, they have not been accorded the chance to test their might against any country, but rather had practice matches against Notwane, Digodi and Rolling Boys.

The Botswana Football Association (BFA) has been working round the clock to secure a friendly match against South Africa for this weekend, en route to Lesotho. 

By press time on Wednesday, the envisaged international friendly duel had not been confirmed although the Mochudi Centre Chiefs’ Assistant Coach was hopeful the match would materialize. Morapedi is not totally new to the competition having been in the technical team of the 2009 tournament where they played and lost to the likes of a Zimbabwe side that first brought Kaizer Chiefs’ star Knowledge Musona to the limelight.

One of his biggest challenges has been the failure of the team to start preparations in time as almost all the players were engaged in school examinations. A training camp that was earmarked for the start of this month had to be cancelled as only a few players would be available, and they only started gathering for camp over the past fortnight.

His Group D opponents on the other hand, have had their preparations started earlier, and he will be challenged to motivate his side to dig deeper from their prowess to brush aside Zimbabwe and Swaziland to qualify for the semi finals.

By October 20, the Swaziland Under 20 team was already in motion, playing premier league side Manzini Sundowns and winning the game 5-1 at the Somhlolo Stadium. According to Times of Swaziland, the team is made up of eight players who are active in that country’s premier league. Last month in that publication, the team’s coach Musa Mamba was quoted thus: “We are now preparing for the games in Lesotho. We are starting to build a team that will represent the country well in the games. Changes will be there if necessary but 80 per cent of these players are the ones going to Lesotho.”

The Zimbabwean team has also had their preparations as early as last month. They even hope to include some European-based youngsters such as  Mikaael White (18) in their squad.

According to The Herald, the team coached by Jairos Tapera already has the resource backing of Mimosa, a mining company that owns FC Platinum and is also employer to Tapera. “The coaches have selected players for assessment but some could be coming from the United Kingdom and other bases at their own expenses so that they can fight for places in the team,” the newspaper quoted Patrick Mutesva, Zimbabwe’s Under 20 team manager.

On Wednesday, Morapedi, who has called on Batswana to back the young players, was keeping his fingers crossed that the South Africa game would materialize, believing the match could give him a more realistic measure of his boys’ readiness for the tournament. Botswana play the opening match of the tournament against Swaziland in Maseru and will play Zimbabwe three days later. 

Each of the four group winners will proceed to the last four for the semi final clashes. However, because Groups B and D each have three teams, the top two sides of the groups will play each other, with the top teams crossing over to play second-placed sides. The winners will then join Group A and C winners for the semi-finals. Group B has Angola, Mozambique and Madagascar.

Group A has hosts Lesotho, Kenya, Comoros Islands and Mauritius, while defending champions Zambia battle it out with South Africa, Namibia and Seychelles in Group C.  The semi finals of the tournament will be played on December 12 while the finals are scheduled for December 14.