Bantwana to report for camp ahead of Under-17 World Cup qualifier tie

Simphiwe Dludlu’s Bantwana will report for camp on Friday ahead of their Fifa Under-17 World Cup qualifiers match against Ethiopia on the 15^th April in Johannesburg.

Bantwana progressed to the second round of the qualifiers after getting a bye last month against Kenya, who face suspension from Fifa along with Zimbabwe due to political interferences in football by the two countries’ governments.

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Dludlu has been assembling a new squad for the national Under-17 women’s team for about two months now, with many of previous players having been promoted to the Under-20 women’s team due to their age.

Last month, Dludlu called-up 36 players for camp in her quest to build a formidable Bantwana team, which saw going all over the country attending tournaments and identifying top talent. But, the team wasn’t able to play a competitive match then and they resorted to playing friendly matches.

With the team set to meet up again, Dludlu says it will all be about continuity for the team and they have to put in a lot of hard work in order to prepare for the game.

“We love coming together and playing international football, and this week will be no different. We will continue building from our last training camp, and will be hoping that the players are still on the level we left them on,” the Bantwana coach told Safa.net.

“Although we managed to get a practice match against a local club in our last camp, I still feel it would have been better to play against another country. We will be hard at work in the coming week preparing for this qualifier match against Ethiopia, who we have been studying.”

Bantwana will be hoping the qualifiers go well for them with the aim of making it to their third Fifa Under-17 World Cup having qualified in 2010 and in 2018.