8 Nations Under 20 tournament

Starting on Friday 25th May, running till the 3rd June, Cape Town plays host to an international Under 20's tournament called the 8 Nations. Footiecall has been fortunate enough to be invited to attend & cover the event and will be bringing you updates throughout the week on how the tournament is progressing.

2 years ago, South Africa hosted the biggest sporting event in the world with Cape Town being a major part of  the FIFA World Cup 2010. Just before the World Cup began, SAFA agreed that there will be an 8 Nations event that would take place every 2nd year. Its focus is on youth development & exposure. This year some top teams have entered and it promises to be quite a spectacle:


GroupA:
South Africa
Argentina
Ghana
Nigeria


Group B:
Brazil
Cameroon
Kenya
Japan


Footiecall in the 8 Nations
This will be the 1st event Footiecall will cover in full so we'll be assuming new roles, very different from our current research & writing roles. Allow me to introduce you to our staff:

1. Potz: Master photogropher - Having seen many pictures in his lifetime as well as owning a camera phone, there is probably no better qualified person to stand behind the FootieCall camera which we borrowed from Chad (thanks Chad). If someone does something, he might take a picture! 
2. BCM:  Interviewer extraordinaire - After many years of talking to other humans, he has a brilliant background of speech (since age 2) & questions. He'll be leading some interviews with managers & captains all while dressing appropriately & holding a pen. Consummate professional. 
3. Themba Sweet: Research & Twitter liaison (the RT guy) - it's widely known that Football is designed to talk about on Twitter. As long as this man has a charged phone, you can be sure he'll tweet something.

Group A info & key players:
Group A is easily the tougher of the 2.

• South Africa's 25 man squad is made up of 4 foreign based players and can be viewed here. We'll be keeping a close eye on Pirates youngster, Mbongeni Gumede.
• The Ghana team is made up purely of Ghana based players . The Black Satellites (Ghana U20 nickname) won the 2009 FIFA World Cup were runners up twice. In 2009 they also won the African Youth Championship for the 3rd time.
• Nigeria are 6 time African Youth Champs & current holders.
• Argentina are the wild card in this group with the African countries not knowing what to expect. Messi, Saviola & Aguero have all won Golden Shoe for the U20's with Mascherano & Di Maria also graduating from the U20's.

Group B info & Key players:

• Brazil are obvious favourites & with good reason. In their final practice before coming to Cape Town, they won 8-1 with Ademilson scoring 3. We expect Seleção to reach the finals as a minimum given their group.
• Cameroon only have 1 African Youth Championship title to their name, but will be bringing a strong squad who have played together for longer than nearly any other team in the tournament.
• Kenya we call our wildcard. This basically means we know nothing about them. Their 1st game is Saturday 26th so we'll find out soon enough.
• Japan - always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Many runners-up positions, but no winners medals. However they are very young and, similar to Carmeroon, have played together for a while.

All games will be played at Greenpoint & Athlone stadiums with ticket prices starting at only R25 (from Checkers & Computicket). It's a great opportunity to see future stars playing in our back garden. The fixture list is below & you can follow this link for more information: THIS!