The U20 South
African women’s soccer team has returned from Mozambique with deep satisfaction
following their emphatic Women’s U20 FIFA 2008 World Cup qualifier return-leg
3-1 victory over their Southern African neighbours, coming on the heels of the
team’s 4-0 home victory a fortnight ago.
Nothando
Vilikazi, Tina Selepe and Mamello Makhabane were the girls to score for South Africa on Saturday afternoon in Maputo, Mozambique,
in a team boosted with the inclusion of five senior squad members including Gloria
Thato, Memory Makhanya, Kylie-Ann Louw, Lusinda Bowers and Makhabane.
“What we’re
glad to see is that different players are scoring” said team manager Fran
Hilton-Smith, on the team’s arrival at OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg, on Sunday.
Basetsana
will quietly be building optimism for the team’s chances of qualifying for the
age-group team championships, scheduled for November this year Chile.
Basetsana’s
back-to-back qualifier wins follow a first-ever tour to Germany and the
Netherlands in November 2007, where their preparations for one of two World Cup
slots was boosted by playing some of the best in the game, losing 2-0 to the
Netherlands after an opening tour 1-all draw against U20 European and World
Champions Germany.
Basetsana seeks
to qualify as one of the continent’s two best teams in a home-and-away
tournament in a group of 15 teams, which includes Cameroon, Benin, Nigeria,
Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius, DR Congo, Zambia and
Egypt.
Owing to the
withdrawal of Zimbabwe from
contention, Basetsana’s next engagement will be the first leg played against Mauritius, in Pretoria at the end of March.
Since senior
squad Banyana Banyana’s now out of this year’s Olympics spectacular, all attention
in the women’s game will be focused on ensuring the U20 team’s best chances at
booking their tickets to Chile.
The World
Cup will be contested among a field 16 teams spit into four groups, with a
group each playing out of the Chilean cities of Coquimbo, Santiago, Chillan and
Temuco, with China, Korea, Japan, Germany, England, France, Norway and Chile already
qualified for the premier age-group competition.
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