Amajita head coach Raymond Mdaka has lifted the lid on his pre-match talk before his charges staged an emphatic come-from-behind win over Zambia in the 2026 COSAFA CAF U20 Africa Cup of Nations Qualifiers semi-finals.
The defending champions had fallen 1-0 behind to the Junior Chipolopolo going into the halftime break, but the second period was dominated by South Africa who killed off the match with a 4-2 success to also qualify for the 2027 CAF U20 Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana.
Steven Mendes continued his impressive form in the tournament with two converted penalties to take his tally to five goals with an assist while also earning the Man of the Match award for the second time.
Oarabile Booysen added the third goal before substitute Emile Witbooi turned the Zambian defence inside out to slot home the winner.
Speaking to safa.net, Mdaka reminded his players that as defending champions they had to grind hard for the result in order to book their ticket to Ghana next year.
“What I said to the boys even before we could talk about what to fix, where to improve, I said to them ‘look guys we have got the trophy and we are the African champions, ” he said.
“It will be a bad thing for us not to go and defend the trophy because you lose it here, it means you’re not going to the AFCON’. I said ‘put that in your mind but we’re not going to put pressure on you’.
“You know our plans against Zambia, we know how they play, two days we were studying them, checking out how they play. Let’s go back and do the same thing, but this time let’s make sure that we put more numbers in the final third, we increase the speed in the final third, because we realize their defenders were waiting for us to load the ball up front.
“We brought in Emile to come and play right in front of their centre backs so that space they create gives us an opportunity, and indeed it worked for us.
“But I really appreciate the character of the boys, it’s not easy to come down from 1-0 in this kind of an intensive game and be able to score more goals, that’s a sign of being positive.”