The
match is scheduled to take place on Saturday 11 August 2012 at the Bidvest Wits
University grounds. Kick-off is at 7.pm. The team began camp on Sunday 05
August 2012 with medical check-ups taking place on the same day.
South
Africa managed to get an away goal during the 1st leg on Saturday 29 July 2012
in Congo. The Amajita squad is in ahead of the much anticipated encounter with
hopes of overturning the average having secured an away goal.
Head
Coach Solly Luvhengo says he and his technical team will do all in their powers
to ensure not only a good performance from the young South Africans but also
get a positive result to progress in the competition.
Luvhengo
says despite not having all the players on the first day, the mood in camp is
very good and that the whole team is looking forward to a good game.
"It
is a satisfying environment with regards to the energy and overall mood, we
expect it to rise even higher when all the players report for camp, we expect
the last bunch on Wednesday. We also had to consider the fact that the PSL
season is about to begin and this means we could not get all the players we
would have liked to have for this camp. Lebo Ngobeni (Tuks), Junior Sibande
(Tuks), Steve Hoffman (Wits), Asive Langwe (Wits) and Keagan Dolly of Ajax
could not join us but these are the type of inconveniences you have to learn to
plan for as a national team coach so we are working on finding suitable
replacements to consolidate and complement the current team.
The
Coach also says he was satisfied with the team's performance away and will be
hoping to build from that.
"Not
much went wrong during the first leg; we just didn't play hard enough to win.
We scored first and conceded from two set pieces so maybe we should just be on
the lookout for such mistakes going into this second leg," said Luvhengo.
Luvhengo
says there is no reason to panic nor make any drastic changes to the team for
this encounter.
"In
my view, all the players played well and represented the country well, it was
just not our day. There is certainly no need to panic, we have an away goal and
we should use that as a stepping stone in achieving our mandate which is
qualifying for Algeria as this will also help us in qualifying for the World
Cup in Turkey because the top four teams in the AYC automatically qualify for
the World Cup," said Luvhengo.
Having
coached the South African National Under 17 team; Luvhengo says this is an
advantage for him and his technical team as these players know what is expected
from them.
"it
is always a pleasure seeing these players improve technically and also grow as
players this is very good for me and my team in as far as the game plan and
ideas are concerned, they know what we want from them and how we want it
implemented. 60 to 70 percent of these boys I have worked with before and as I
said before, it helps a lot," added the coach.
With
no injury worries for the team, Luvhengo says the team will definitely do all
in their powers to win the match and that the public should rally behind the
team with all the support the young boys and act as the 12th player.
