Top South African youngsters to miss out on further development and possible European moves.

Image: iDiski Times Twitter

With the national Under-23 team having failed to qualify for AFCON U23 Championships to be held in Morocco, which means no Olyimpic games for them, an opportunity to be scouted by top European clubs is gone.

It is not only the U23s that have missed out, earlier this month, AFCON Under-20 Championships were held in Egypt, and once again South Africa was missing in action.

The continuous absence of our junior national teams in international tournaments is negatively affecting not only the further development of our top youngsters, who miss out on possible European moves, but it affects our senior national team as well, who are denied a steady supply of well developed youngsters to carry them forward.

There is no doubt about the talent South Africa has in terms of young players coming through the ranks.

But the likes of Mduduzi Shabalala, Mfundo Vilakazi, Ntando Nkosi, Relebohile Ratomo, Siyabonga Mabhena to name only a few, will need to compete against the best of their peers if they are to reach the heights of international football, but that won't be possible with the continued failure of our youth national teams to qualify for major tournaments like the Under-20 World Cup and the Olympic games.

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Luckily, the national Under-17 side managed to qualify for the AFCON Under-17 Championships after making it through the COSAFA region.

Their coach, Duncan Crowie, and the boys must be commended for making it through, hopefully, they will qualify for the next U17 World Championships.

The fact of the matter is, if our youth national teams don't participate against the best of their peers on the world stage, we can kiss the hopes of having a strong Bafana Bafana side in the near future goodbye.

Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Morocco will continue to be miles ahead of South Africa because they take their youth national teams seriously, hence their continued participation in youth World Cups and an influx of their top youngsters to European leagues.

As for South Africa, the COSAFA Cup is the only tournament we will be guaranteed to take part in, not that we will win it either, as we are quickly falling behind the likes of Zambia and Angola in the region.