Senong dangles Fifa Under-20 World Cup carrot in front of his player

Amajita coach Thabo Senong has urged his players to play for places in the Fifa Under-20 World Cup in Sunday’s Caf U-20 Africa Cup of Nations third-place playoff against Guinea.

South Africa lost in the 109th-minute of injury time against hosts Zambia in front of a capacity 60 000 crowd at the National Heroes Stadium in Lusaka on Wednesday night.

They must pick themselves up from the disappointment of not reaching the final for the match for third-place (kickoff: 2pm) against Guinea‚ 1-0 losers against Senegal in the semis‚ at the same venue on Sunday.

Senong said as much as Amajita are hungry for a bronze medal‚ the game will also begin the process of preparation for the U-20 World Cup in South Korea in May and June.

“Just after qualifying for the semifinals we shifted our focus to preparing for the World Cup. And now every game going forward is a World Cup preparation‚” SA’s U-20 coach said.

“And we are happy that we are playing a very tough‚ good team in Guinea. This is one of the best teams in the tournament if you look at how they rotate the ball and return possession.

“So we have two approaches towards getting a good result and a bronze medal‚ while also looking at improving our team so that we can become better and better.

“We only have two months to prepare for the World Cup‚ so we need to take advantage of every match from now going forward.”

Senong said he had not had problems motivating his players for the third-place match.

“It’s easy to motivate these players. Most of them are playing for their reserve teams‚ so the motivation is to get into their first team starting line-ups at their PSL clubs‚ ” he said.

“And then of course‚ another way to motivate them is to tell them to try to keep improving their games because there will be scouts at the World Cup.

“And of course the biggest carrot is that they can graduate to the Under-23s and the senior national team.

“Players need to prove themselves to stay in the team because we have a big pool of 70 to 80 players who can play for Amajita. So nobody owns their positions or a World Cup spot.”

Senong said with Amajita having played 120 minutes at an intense pace against Zambia he might opt to rotate players in his starting line-up.

Amajita’s third-place match forms part of a double header at the Heroes Stadium with the final between Zambia and Senegal‚ which kicks off at 5.30pm.

Both games will be televised live on SuperSport 9. The Amajita match is also on SuperSport 6‚ and final also on SuperSport 4.

- TMG Digital