Juniors take centre stage!

Juniors take centre stage!

While the greatest football players in the world are enjoying their fame, or licking their wounds after the end of the 2022-23 season, the young guns who are earmarked to replace them get a golden opportunity to strut their stuff in the most important international junior tournaments.

By Mark Gleeson

The U-23 Africa Cup of Nations finals in Morocco, plus the U-21 European Championship in Georgia and Romania, will be showcasing many of the stars of the future as it dominates the footballing agenda over the next days.

Form guides are relatively limited for these competitions because of the turnover of generations but there is also a general consistency in the pecking order based on the effectiveness of the youth development system in the respective countries.

In Africa, Egypt and Morocco are good examples of countries where their junior teams produce great future players, while Ghana is a country where the conveyor belt of talent seems never ending.

That is also true of Nigeria, however, their broken-down football federation means they do not always deliver on their potential because their junior teams are not given the necessary resources.

The same can be said of South Africa, where our U-23 team did not qualify for the eight-team tournament in Morocco, where the top three finishers will advance to the men’s football tournament at next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

Amagluglug were knocked out in the preliminary round by Congo, who play in Group A with Ghana, Guinea and the hosts.

Egypt, the defending champions, play against Mali tomorrow, which is likely to be the toughest match they will face in Group B, which also includes Gabon and Niger. Gabon came close to being kicked out after accusations of using an overage player, but kept their place in the finals after winning their appeal.

In Europe, co-hosts Georgia started their campaign with a shock 2-0 win over Portugal in the U-21 European Championship and picked up a further point to lead group A.

On paper it looked the toughest group with Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal all bringing a formidable squad, but Georgia could well finish off their campaign at the top of the table.

It will be D-day for the Dutch when they take on Georgia tonight in a match they must win. It is a powerful Dutch side which includes full internationals like Brian Brobbey, Ryan Gravenberch, and Kenneth Taylor.

Belgium are also in need of a win and with two draws so far have underperformed, given the quality of their squad with players like AC Milan’s Charles De Ketelaere, Lois Openda and Aster Vranckx, who have also won caps at full internationals.