{"id":44403,"date":"2026-09-02T13:08:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=44403"},"modified":"2026-09-02T13:08:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:08:01","slug":"seychelles-return-to-cosafa-u-20-qualifier","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/seychelles-return-to-cosafa-u-20-qualifier\/","title":{"rendered":"Seychelles return to COSAFA U-20 Qualifier \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seychelles will return to the regional stage for the first time since 2022 as they target a maiden knockout berth at the TotalEnergies Confederation of African Football (CAF) Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) Qualifier, scheduled to run from September 18 to 27, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The island nation faces a stern test after being drawn in Group A alongside regional rivals Mauritius, Namibia, and Mozambique. Under the tournament structure, only the top team in each pool, along with the best-placed runner-up across the three groups, will advance to the semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The stakes remain exceptionally high for the participating youth teams, as the two finalists will automatically qualify for next year&#8217;s TotalEnergies CAF U-20 AFCON, a continental showpiece Seychelles has never previously reached.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22848,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-44403","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Seychelles return to U-20 COSAFA Tournament","published_date":"2026-09-02 13:03:43","news_description":"Seychelles Return to U-20 COSAFA Tournament","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44404,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44403\/revisions\/44404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=44403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}