SA youth national teams? Gone with the wind.

It is now history that South African under-17 national team suffered a humiliating 5-0 defeat to Senegal in the quarter-finals of the AFCON U17 showpiece.

Amajimbos had made it into the quarter-finals as one of the best third placed teams when the group stages ended.

The way they qualified suggests that their heavy defeat was something to be expected, they had no business being there in the first place, to be brutally honest.

But the boys tried, under the circumstances, they fought a good fight, and as their coach, Duncan Crowie said as quoted by Times Live, you don't lose, you either win or you learn.

“The important thing is the learning process,” Crowie said.  

“All of us are disappointed, but like [former president] Nelson Mandela said, ‘he never loses. It's either you win or learn’.  

“The important thing is not to sit back, not only for South Africa but for individual players as well to say, this is what I could learn and this [is] what I will do next time.”  

https://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/soccer/2023-05-11-either-you-win-or-learn-amajimbos-coach-duncan-crowie-on-being-knocked-out-of-u-17-afcon/

And the boys did learn, that is for sure.

But it is their parents - SAFA that is, who need to learn from the disappointments of our youth national teams, history can't continue repeating itself like this.

Our youth national teams must start doing well in continental tournaments and qualify for world cups, or we must just accept that our football is doomed, and going nowhere slowly.

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The fact that the Under-23's, Under-20's,  as well as the Under-17's all failed, should be both an embarrassment and a wake up call to SAFA, you can't continue to sleep with three loud wake up calls shouting your name.

Something must be done, starting with affording our youth national teams the opportunity to play more friendly matches against good opposition, plus enough time to prepare for tournaments.

Yes there are challenges, but something has to give, we can't keep having hastily assembled teams representing the country, it is not fair to the coaches and the players alike.