South Africa ready to face CMR in CAF Youth Champs

South Africa Men’s Under 17 football coach Molefi Ntseki is not worried at all about being grouped with Ivory Coast, Mali and Cameroon in the CAF African Youth Championship which runs from 17 February - 1 March this year.

The national team jets off on Saturday and will travel via Addis Ababa before settling in Niamey, the capital of Niger for this important tournament which will decide whether they do go to the World Cup in Chile later in the year.

Ntseki said everything is going well and they are ready to take on the best African teams and make the nation pride.

"We have proven in the past that when the going gets tough that is when the best comes out of our boys. We are in a tough Group but we are relishing the challenge,” said Ntseki.

South Africa kickoff their campaign with Ivory Coast on February 16 at the Municipal Stadium. Kick-off is at 15h00.

Three days later on February 19, they tackle Mali before playing their last Group B match against Cameroon on February 22. Both matches kick off at 15h00 and will be played at Municipal Stadium.

Before going to this tournament Amajimbos, played a friendly match against Eastern Cape Under-17 Provincial team and despite going down 2-1, Ntseki said he was happy with the performance.

“The friendly match was very important for us because we managed to break away from the normal trend and was in a different environment.

"The purpose of the friendly was for us to get a chance to have a look at all the players hence there were eight substitutions at one go. The result was not the focus of the day but rather to see where we are ahead of our journey,” he said.

The winners of Group A, which consists of hosts Niger, Nigeria, Guinea and Zambia, will play the runner up in Group B while the winner of Group B will play the runner up in Group A.