BY Obakeng Maje

South Africa Under-20 coach Solly Luvhengo admits there is room for improvement from his side as they prepare to face Nigeria in their final Group A match in the 8-Nation tournament taking place in Cape Town.

Amajita meet Nigeria at the Cape Town Stadium on Tuesday (29 May) evening. Kick off is at 18H00.

They go into the game on the back of a 2-0 win over Ghana, which had followed the disappointment of a 3-1 opening loss to Argentina.

A draw against the Flying Eagles could be enough to see Amajita advance to the semi-finals, unless Ghana manages to beat Argentina when those two countries clash later in the evening (20H30 kick off, also at Cape Town Stadium.)

The South African side has played some excellent football in both of their games, with the 3-1 score-line to Argentina not a true reflection of the game, a fact to which Argentine coach Marcello Trobbiani has openly admitted.

There were many positives from the win over the Black Satellites, including the clean sheet, another man-of-the-match performance from Snethemba Ngidi, and a second goal in two games for striker Thabani Mthembu.
But Amajita’s goals to chances ratio has not been as good as it should be: their dominance in terms of build-up play and clear-cut opportunities created has unfortunately not transcended into as many goals as it should have, a fact which Luvhengo is very much aware of. 

“We worked very hard to create chances against Ghana, which is not an easy thing to do. When you get a chance and don’t finish, it’s not acceptable. It can come back to haunt you if the opponents get one chance and score.

“We are creating chances but don’t stab them into the net. Look at Argentina in our first game – they got three chances and scored three goals. Against Ghana we had seven, eight chances, but only scored twice.

“And these were from set pieces, not open play – it is a factor which I am aware of and which concerns us.

“We need to calm down after the Ghana win. It’s a good win, but it’s behind us now. Nigeria are a very good team, very strong and from nothing they can get a goal – that’s the difference: from nothing they can score,” said Luvhengo.
Nigeria is yet to pick up a point in the tournament. But should they beat South Africa, and if Ghana loses to Argentina, the Flying Eagles still have the possibility of going through to the semi-finals on goal difference.

Hence, it’s all to play for, and Nigeria coach John Obuh is hoping his players can lift themselves to a better performance after back to back defeats.

“I expected more of my players in the Argentina game, but we were too worried and made too many mistakes.

“We will give it a very good fight against South Africa. I was very surprised to see them beating Ghana after Ghana had put up such a wonderful performance against us.

“South Africa beating Ghana has put us under a lot of pressure, but there is still hope for us and we are going to go out there and give everything we have,” he said.

The second game of the evening promises to be every bit as entertaining as the first. 
Even with six points from two games, Argentina is not guaranteed a place in the semi-final: should they lose to Ghana and if South Africa beat Nigeria, three teams will finish on six points and it will come down to goal difference.

Argentina’s play has been solid if unspectacular – they have gone about their game in a businesslike fashion, but there is the sense that the South Americans could lift things to another level when needed.

Ghana on the other hand have been inconsistent. The thrill of their opening day win over Nigeria subsided with a less energetic performance in a 2-0 loss to Amajita; it could be a question of which Black Satellite unit shows up for the crunch game with Argentina.
One thing is for certain – Group A has developed as expected into the group of death and Tuesday night promises to be high on drama and excitement.