Cosafa Under-20 Youth Championships - Day 5

2011 Metropolitan Cosafa Under-20 Youth Championships

Day Five Review

Angola took a giant step towards the semi-finals of the 2011 Metropolitan COSAFA Under-20 Youth Championships when they beat Zimbabwe 3-2 in Group D on Monday to maintain their position on top of the pool.

The Angolans now require just a point from their final encounter with Namibia on Tuesday to seal their place in the Last 4 of what has been an evenly contested group so far.

But Zimbabwe is now out of the competition and there will be no repeat of the semi-final appearance in 2010, when they went on to collect bronze in the competition.

It all started well enough for the Young Warriors as Trevor Mutero collected a Ronald Chitiyo pass to score on 16 minutes.

The lead lasted just four minutes though, as Nicolu Adriano put Afonso Eddie through to equalise.

And the Angolans had the lead just before the break too when the impressive Adriano netted for them, ghosting past the lacklustre Zimbabwean defence.

It was 3-1 soon after the break when Almeida Valdemar profited from more good work from Adriano.

Zimbabwe gave themselves hope though as Marvelous Nakamba lived up to his name with a sublime finish to make it 3-2. But try as they might they could not force an equaliser.

In the other match in Group D, Namibia defeated Madagascar 3-1 but the islanders may count themselves unfortunate not to have got something from the game. Petrus Shitembi handed Namibia the lead on 35 minutes, before he added a second with an excellent free-kick just before halftime. Edmund Kambanda added a third for the Young Brave Warriors just after halftime, but from then on the game was totally dominated by Madagascar.

They got a magnificent goal back through Kassah Voavy as he thundered the ball past Collin Ndjai in the Namibian goal for arguably the finest strike of the tournament so far. The score remained 3-1 and Namibia have given themselves hope if they can beat Angola on Tuesday.

In between these two games was a dead-rubber match that was won 3-1 by Lesotho over Seychelles in Group B, with Malawi already having progressed from this pool.

Keddy Moustache put Seychelles ahead on 81 minutes, but late goals from Tšoanelo Koetle, Mkwananzi Motlomelo and Jeremiah Kamele gave Lesotho the comfortable win.