Amajita’s coach, Raymond Mdaka, says they will leave no stone unturned when they face the United States in their final group stage match at the ongoing Fifa U-20 World Cup.
Amajita have blown hot and cold since the start of the global showpiece. They kicked off their campaign with a 2-1 loss to France, before hammering the group’s whipping boys, New Caledonia, 5-0 on Friday morning.
That win ensured they are still in the running to qualify for the knockout stages—either as group winners, runners-up, or one of the best third-place finishers.
However, their task is cut out for them. They’ll face group leaders and already-qualified United States, who beat both New Caledonia and France, scoring 11 unanswered goals.
Amajita’s chances of finishing top of the group are slim to none. They would need to beat the Americans by five goals to overtake them at the top. That’s why their focus should be on securing a win that would allow them to leapfrog France, who are currently ahead based on head-to-head results.
Heading into the clash at Estadio El Teniente on Sunday night (10 pm kick-off), Mdaka knows they’ll have their work cut out for them—hence the need for thorough preparation.
“The good thing about playing against the USA is that they are objective and a very good team,” Mdaka said. “They think forward, and most of them are athletes. So, we need to be very disciplined in terms of our structure.
“At the same time, we need to play to get results. It will be a tough game, so we need to sit down with our analysts and see how best we can approach it.”
Mdaka welcomed the win over New Caledonia, but he feels his troops could have done more to ensure their fate was in their own hands.
“Yes, we’ll always take the win—even though, as the technical team, we are not happy,” Mdaka said. “We wanted to win with more goals.
“We are not happy with the tactical discipline of our players. We’ve got our grievances because they know how we are supposed to play.
“Somewhere, somehow, we lost a number of opportunities where we should have scored. There were times we were supposed to move, but we didn’t. So, we need to improve, and the players must be professional—whether in defence or attack.
“Honestly, we played against a team where I think we should have scored more than nine or ten goals, which would have put us at an advantage going into the next game.”
With the top two teams from each group and the four best third-placed teams advancing to the round of 16, Mdaka knows there’s still a lot to play for in their final group stage match. But to progress, they must be clinical in front of goal.
“Yes, we could also look at the last game, which I lamented, because I think we could have done better. We’re now sitting on three points, France is on three points, and the United States is on six. We forget about New Caledonia,” Mdaka said.
“You never know what’s happening in the other groups to say you have a chance of going through as one of the best third-placed teams. But we take it from here and prepare for the next game on Sunday.”
