Khumalo: We want to qualify for Afcon

By Benjamin Nyirenda

The national Under 17 team will from 11 September compete in the COSAFA Under 17 Afcon qualifiers in Harare Zimbabwe.

Under 17 head coach Vela Khumalo has told Eswatini Daily News that their main focus going to this tournament is to qualify for the Afcon finals though they have just assembled a relatively new squad.

Khumalo said that though they didn’t have enough time to prepare for this tournament they have good enough talent to compete at the regional tournament and qualify for the Afcon finals.

“I think with the COSAFA tournament that we are going to we are having a new team but we really didn’t have enough preparation time but we hope that with the talent we scouted they will take us to Afcon which is the first thing first to say let’s qualify for Afcon with this new team that we have just assembled just now,” Khumalo observed.

Khumalo will later this year lead Amajimbos to the FIFA Under 17 World Cup in Qatar from 5 to 27 November and the coach says their aim going into that tournament will be at least to qualify for the knockout stages.

“With the other team that is going to the World Cup obviously they have done well and the country is proud about them and we also don’t want to see ourselves just adding numbers there.

If we can go to the knockout stages it would even be better but with the talent we have we can even go further.

So those are the targets that we have put for ourselves to say with this new group coming in let’s qualify for Afcon and that one for the World Cup let it qualify for the knockout stages,” Khumalo concluded.