20 matches for Caf schools tourney opening day

THE Caf African Schools Football Championship Cosafa Region Qualifiers will get underway at Gateway High School in Harare today with selected matches set to be streamed on the FIFA+ channel.

Cosafa, on their website, revealed that boys and girls in the Under-15 age group category will do battle for regional honours and a place in the continental finals beginning today at Gateway in Harare.

Both competitions will run concurrently, with 10 countries taking part in the boys and girls’ categories.

Hosts Zimbabwe will take on Malawi and Botswana will clash with Eswatini in the Group A openers in the boys’ competition at 9am, while at the same those nations will clash in the girls’ tournament too.

South Africa and Angola open their bid for glory in the boys and girls’ competitions with a Group B clash at 10am, while Zambia and Namibia do likewise on another pitch at the same time.

There will be a total of 20 games played on the opening day, with 20 more scheduled for Friday, when the group phase will come to a close.

The winners of each of the two pools in both the boys and girls’ competitions will then face each other in the final.

The girls’ final will be on Saturday at 10am, with the boys’ decider in the afternoon. Before then, the runners-up in each pool will contest for the bronze medal.

The girls’ play-off game is at 9am and the boys’ at 10am .

The boys will play on a full-size 11-a-side pitch, while the girls’ tournament will be on a pitch half the standard size and will be a 8v8 affair.

In both competitions, it will be 20 minutes per half, with a 10-minute half-time break.

There will be a total of 44 games played across the three days of competition in a true festival of schools football.

Fifa Forward manager in Zimbabwe Kudzai Chitima says the tournament will leave a long-lasting legacy through its capacitation programmes.

The build-up to the tournament proper has already seen the hosting of a Caf D licensing coaching course which concluded yesterday.

A total of 30 coaches drawn from all corners of the country attended the course.

“The coaching course was a huge success. It even got oversubscribed and we had to close the door on some of the coaches. We made sure we had gender balance hence we had 15 males and 15 ladies in the class. We have also had the safeguarding course which also had a class of 30 participants drawn from academies, clubs and schools who are our main target,” said Chitima.

Zifa also conducted a safeguarding and young reporters workshop leading to the tournament.

Hosts Zimbabwe are in Group A together with Malawi, Botswana, Eswatini and Mozambique. Group B consists of South Africa, Angola, Zambia, Namibia and Madagascar. It is the same position in the girls’ section.

Zimbabwe did not participate last year, so this will be their debut and they are hoping to feature the best of their schools’ talent.

According to Cosafa, changes to the regulations this year allow countries to enter the best of the footballers on display at their national qualifiers, rather than a single winning school, as happened in 2022.

-@innocentskizoe