Young Warriors in semis
Sp4

Patrick Mutesva

Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
THE Young Warriors qualified for the Cosafa Youth Championships semi-finals before they even kicked a ball in their semi-final play-off match this afternoon against Mozambique at Sesotho after the organisers yesterday clarified the criteria being used at the tournament.

The organisers clarified that after the play-off matches today, the teams will revert to their groups with all the points they would have accumulated and the head-to-head rule would then be used should the teams finish with the same number of points.

Zimbabwe are leading group D with six points having beaten all the teams in the group, Swaziland (2-1) and Botswana (3-0).  Botswana have three points after a single victory against Swaziland.

The top two teams will now feature in the semi-final playoffs with top two teams from Group B — Angola and Mozambique. Even if the Young Warriors were to lose their play-off match against Mozambique, they will remain on six points.

Botswana can get to six points, if they beat Angola, but Zimbabwe will still win the group and qualify for the semi-finals because they have a better head-to-head record when compared to the Zebras.

The Cosafa organisers were forced to have these play-offs matches as other groups had three teams and they wanted all the teams to play an equal number of matches — three games.

Interestingly, Zimbabwe in the last four would meet Group B leader — either Angola of Mozambique.  Group A and C complete their round stages today with the winners from the two groups meeting in the semi final.

Speaking from Lesotho yesterday, Young Warriors team manager Patrick Mutesva said they were ready to face their neighbours.
“There was a bit of improvement in our Saturday match against Botswana. We are happy about that but we still want more. We expect to even do better in our match against Mozambique.

“If we are serious about qualifying for the final and win the trophy we have to up our game. In terms of play, Mozambique is playing a good flowing game and we have also been picking up considering the slow start we had.

“We have won both our group matches but our performance, especially against Swaziland, wasn’t convincing at all. Against Botswana we also missed a lot of chances but we expect to even do better in this game,” said Mutesva.

Yesterday the team had a recovery session and spent the whole day resting.  The trio of Tafadzwa Kutinyu, Munya Nyenye and Walter Musona picked up some knocks in the weekend’s game but are likely to recover and feature today.

GROUP STANDINGS

GROUP A
P    W    D    L    F    A    Pts
Kenya    2    1    1    0    5    1    4
Lesotho    2    0    2    0    3    3    2
Comoros    2    0    2    0    2    2    2
Mauritiu    2    0    1    1    0    4    1

GROUP B
P    W    D    L    F    A    Pts
Angola    2    2    0    0    8    2    6
Moza    2    1    0    1    7    3    3
M/gasca    2    0    0    2    1    11    0

GROUP C
P    W    D    L    F    A    Pts
Sa    2    2    0    0    5    0    6
Namibia    2    1    1    0    3    2    4
Zambia    2    0    1    1    1    2    1
Seychels    2    0    0    2    1    6    0

GROUP D
P    W    D    L    F    A    Pts
Zim    2    2    0    0    5    1    6
Bots    2    1    0    1    2    3    3
Swaz    2    0    0    2    1    4    0

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