{"id":46651,"date":"2026-09-28T10:41:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T08:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=46651"},"modified":"2026-09-28T10:41:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T08:41:51","slug":"amajita-crowned-cosafa-u20-champions","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/amajita-crowned-cosafa-u20-champions\/","title":{"rendered":"Amajita crowned COSAFA U20 Champions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">South Africa\u2019s (SA) under 20 have been crowned the COSAFA U20 Championship winners after defeating Mozambique 2-1 in the final on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Raymond Mdaka\u2019s charges booked their spot in the final on Friday after defeating Zambia, which also saw the nation qualify for the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations, which they won last year for the first time in their history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Amajita got the breakthrough in the 27th minute when Oarabile Booysen, who is currently on loan at the University of Pretoria, found the back of the net with a lovely strike from distance that left the goalkeeper with no chance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The joy was short-lived for Mdaka\u2019s boys as Mozambique levelled matters two minutes later thanks to a strike from Martinho Come\u00e7ar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Amajita won a penalty eight minutes after the break when Emile Witbooi was fouled in the box. Kaizer Chiefs midfielder Steven Mendes stepped up and fired home to restore the lead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Mozambique\u2019s hopes of making a comeback suffered a big blow when defender Militao was shown a straight red card after he was caught stepping on Mendes\u2019 arm following a Video Assistant Referee (VAR) review.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Mdaka\u2019s men were able to see out the closing stages of the encounter and claim the COSAFA Championship, as they can now look forward to defending their Africa Cup of Nations title.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20687,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-46651","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The joy was short-lived for Mdaka\u2019s boys as Mozambique levelled matters two minutes later thanks to a strike from Martinho Come\u00e7ar.","published_date":"","news_description":"The joy was short-lived for Mdaka\u2019s boys as Mozambique levelled matters two minutes later thanks to a strike from Martinho Come\u00e7ar.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46651","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\/46651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46652,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46651\/revisions\/46652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=46651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}