BY Obakeng Maje

Day four of the 8-Nation International tournament in Cape Town promises to serve up another feast of exciting youth international action during Monday’s (28 May) double header at Athlone.

Brazil will be firm favourites to pick up their second win of the tournament when they face Kenya at the Athlone Stadium.

Kickoff is at 18h00.

The Brazilians won their first match 1-0 against Cameroon, while Kenya was comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Japan.

Kenya will need to work on their finishing if they are to have any chance of upsetting Brazil – against Japan the east Africans squandered several very good opportunities.

The bad news for Kenya coach Stanley Khayo and his players is that Brazil feel they have plenty of room for improvement on their first game, with their intentions set on lifting the trophy next weekend.

“We expect more from a Brazilian team, but considering first game anxiety we did well (against Cameroon). My technical team will analyse our next opponents, Kenya and Japan, and then advice best how to plan for them within our system,” said Brazil head coach Ney Franciso da Silveira.

“We are taking things step by step, but it would be very important to win this tournament, for the generation of players we are bringing through.”

The second match of the day kicks off at 20H30 and sees Japan facing Cameroon.

The West African side acquitted themselves well against Brazil in their first game, losing 1-0 despite putting the South Americans under severe pressure in the second half.

Cameroon however will be desperate to take at least a point off Japan as they look to keep their dreams of qualifying for the semi-finals alive.

However, the way Group B is panning out, a win would be a much more preferable outcome for the West African side.

Japan coach Yasushi Yoshida was satisfied with his team’s 3-0 win over Kenya in their opening match, but concedes that in Cameroon, the Asian side will have a much tougher challenge.

“We showed very good team-work and passing early on in the game against Kenya and this is something we need to repeat. We understand they are very strong, and we will need to get 100 or more percent out of what we have,” said Yoshida.

“We’ll need to improve on the performance against Kenya if we hope to get a good result from the match against Cameroon.”