Subject: [u21 NT] African Cup of Nations

The cup kicks off this week. Here is a brief look at the groups.

Group A
South Africa -> 18 users, 40 players, R3.33m average value, Age 19.8, rank 60 (1442.36)
Morocco -> 58 users, 26 players, R1.48m average value, Age 19.7, rank 83 (1069.61)
Ghana -> 15 users, 37 players, R0.96m average value, Age 19.8, rank 78 (1132.03)
Algeria -> 17 users, 23 players, R0.79m average value, Age 20.1, rank 69 (1285.26)

Group B
Senegal -> 119 users, 28 players, R2.87m average value, Age 20.1, rank 57 (1457.90)
Nigeria -> 60 users, 35 players, R1.21m average value, Age 20.0, rank 84 (1067.64)
Cameroon -> 23 users, 23 players, R1.16m average value, Age 20.1, rank 92 (707.29)
Tunisia -> 56 users, 27 players, R0.82m average value, Age 20.1, rank 95 (550.11)

Weeks 10 to 12 will be the group stage.
Weeks 13 and 14 will involve all the sides in playoffs, semi's and finals.

We are clearly favourites in our group, and a South Africa-Senegal final would be expected by most.
We start our campaign against Morocco, on paper the toughest opponent in our group.

Lets beat senegal again like we did the seniors hehe :P

goodluck marcl

Team for the first match selected and notifications to managers have been sent out.

If your player wasn't selected, don't despair! There will be a fair bit of rotation going on in this tournament. We want to win each match, but the final is the goal.

nice win mate

Thanks!

Lechesa came good in stunning fashion last night with a tally of 5 goals, having gone goaless in his previous 9 appearances. No doubt some were calling for this managers head for persisting with the 20 year old striker. ;)

Zulu did a good job in the holding midfield position. Djiehoua saw a lot of the ball but didn't quite have the playmaking skills to pull it off to the maximum. Skhosana/Cox were tested out on the right of defence against the Morrocan right wing. A more dangerous side could've punished us there.

The bad news is that Vukubi, who scored 3 goals for a tally now of 7 in 6 matches, picked up an injury with 5 minutes left to play. It will likely keep him out of the next two round robin matches and the semi-final as well.

It looks like Nigeria have pulled out of the tournament, leaving only 7 teams. Here are the standings:

Group 1
South Africa 1 1 0 0 7 1 (3)
Ghana 1 1 0 0 6 0 (3)
Morocco 1 0 0 1 1 7 (0)
Algeria 1 0 0 1 0 6 (0)

Group 2
Senegal 1 1 0 0 10 0 (3)
Tunisia 0 0 0 0 0 0 (0)
Cameroon 1 0 0 1 0 10 (0)
(edited)

We face Ghana tomorrow. Although they are level with us on 3 points, we should be able to get by them quite comfortably. I'm likely to avoid risking any further injuries or suspensions to key players by fielding fringe players for the match.

Only a 1-0 victory against Ghana, but job done by what was very much a B team. We dominated completely but failed woefully in the shooting department. Djiehoua was superb in midfield, my man-of-the-match, and scored the winner as well. I'm very disappointed with Matamela (high value but totally single skilled) and he's been dropped from the squad.

The result has qualified us for the semi-final but we need at least a point against Algeria to guarantee top spot in the group, just in case Ghana beat Morocco, in order to make sure we don't face Senegal just yet.

Group 1
South Africa 2 2 0 0 8 1 (6)
Ghana 2 1 0 1 6 1 (3)
Morocco 2 1 0 1 3 7 (3)
Algeria 2 0 0 2 0 8 (0)

Group 2
Senegal 1 1 0 0 10 0 (3)
Tunisia 1 0 1 0 1 1 (1)
Cameroon 2 0 1 1 1 11 (1)
(edited)

I've made some minor player and positional changes for tomorrow's match, along with some tactical tinkering. I'm hoping we can take more of our chances than we did last week. As for last week, this is very much a B team made up of mostly younger players. Even so, they should have little difficulty beating Algeria.

It's always hard to judge a performance when you've played a much weaker side, but I'm very pleased with the boys after yesterday's match. The Algerians never got a single shot in at goal as we strolled through to a 7-0 victory.

Charles Roskruge made a welcome return from injury and scored 6 from 23 shots. Along with the other 19 year olds like Davies and Rhodes, the youngsters performed really well and look to have a big future in the u21 squad. Davies in particular looks a star in the making.

Group 1
South Africa 3 3 0 0 15 1 (9)
Morocco 3 2 0 1 6 7 (6)
Ghana 3 1 0 2 6 4 (3)
Algeria 3 0 0 3 0 15 (0)

Group 2
Senegal 2 2 0 0 17 1 (6)
Tunisia 2 0 1 1 2 8 (1)
Cameroon 2 0 1 1 1 11 (1)

We now enter the semi-final round of the competition:
South Africa vs Tunisia
Senegal vs Morocco

In the play-offs for 5th place:
Algeria vs Cameroon
Ghana have a bye

While we won't want to risk not making the final, it's also important that we don't risk injury or suspension to important players for the match against Senegal. Tunisia appear to be similar in level to Ghana, who we only just beat despite dominating the match.

Team set for the semi-final and notices have been sent out to managers.

Our youngsters produced a comfortably victory. Shots were wayward at times, but there was plenty of supply from midfield and goals were inevitable. As expected, we're through to the final. That will be a very tough full-strength encounter.

Semi-final results:
5-0 South Africa beat Tunisia
8-0 Senegal beat Morocco
Play-off results:
7-0 Cameroon beat Algeria
bye Ghana

Final
South Africa vs Senegal
3rd place play-off
Tunisia vs Morocco
5th place play-off
Cameroon vs Ghana

well done for arriving to the final stage !

well done and good luck!

Congrats on the victory :)

Had not seen how narrowly we won considering that we won on penalties after suffering a red card in 98th minute and an injury to a player 3 minutes later.

A really hard fought victory.

Thanks mate. Very tough match.