The Burger King-sponsored South African u20 Men’s National Team has concluded their tour of Europe with a 2-1 loss to the u21/Reserve side of PEC Zwolle.

The clash took place on Tuesday night (2 May 2017) in Zwolle, Netherlands.

The home side opened the scoring in the first five minutes of the match when Tarik Fagrach found the back of the net after lack of communication in the South African defence.

The hosts increased their lead minutes later with a goal from Hervin Ongenda.

Amajita tried to claw back into the match when Keletso Makgawa found the back of the net – this was after some good combination play between Aghmat Cere, Sibongakonke Mbatha and Makgawa.

But the South Africans could not find the equaliser and it ended 2-1 to PEC Zwolle.

“PEC Zwolle gave us the best competition in the three matches we played here in the Netherlands. We were able to motivate and encourage the players and they managed to dig deep from their reserves, but unfortunately we could not add any more goals to the one we scored. We are satisfied with what transpired as we achieved a lot during our short stay here, but this has been a great training camp for us all round,” said Amajita head coach Thabo Senong.

This was their third and final match of the tour of Europe.

Amajita won 2-0 against Amsterdam, and lost 1-0 and 2-1 against VFL Bochum and PEC Zwolle respectively.

The fixtures were part of South Africa’s preparations for the 2017 FIFA u20 World Cup, which kicks off later this month.

“Our work here is done, and we saw many things that we need to work on ahead of the World Cup and at the same time we picked up some exciting and encouraging things from our players, so it was a worthwhile exercise,” added Senong

“We are heading back home to continue with the next phase of preparations, which will lead us directly to the tournament and it is going to be intense. But before then, we will announce the squad that will represent us in South Korea – and these matches have helped the technical team a great deal when it comes to making the final selection.”
The Amajita squad departs for South Africa tonight (Wednesday, 3 May) and is expected to land on Thursday morning (4 May 2017).

This article was sourced from the SAFA website.