The South African U20 Men’s National team has been knocked out of the 2025 FIFA Men’s World Cup after a 1-3 defeat to Colombia in a Round of 16 clash played at Estadio Fiscal de Talca in Chile on Wednesday night.
The South Americans got off to a bright start and took the lead after a defensive lapse by the African Champions, with Joel Canchimbo giving them the lead. South Africa battled hard with several chances going abegging, and they were trailing at the recess.
And then just two minutes after the break, livewire Siviwe Magidigidi was brought down in the box, and the referee awarded a penalty to coach Raymond Mdaka’s charges. Mfundo Vilakazi stepped up but his spot kick was saved by the Colombian goalkeeper, but a retake was ordered and this time the South African forward made no mistake to restore parity.
The two teams tried as much as they could to take the lead, but it was Colombia who went ahead through a Neiser Villareal strike. He completed his brace in referee’s optional time, and the goal put paid to any chances of Amajita staging a fightback.
“It’s a hard pill to swallow, more so if you have a team that you believe can be able to get results. We get so used to winning and then when you lose it hits deep. But other than that, we understand it is the nature of football, more especially in the knockout stages – you play, you don’t win and you’re out. But even before one can talk about the match, I think it’s an experience for the boys, the technical team and everyone who was here at the World Cup,” said Mdaka.
“Back to the game I think we were caught in the first few minutes where we could not build up as we are used to. We were caught with the first goal from the blind side, and I think from there we got settled. Then we got a number of chances that we missed, and we had a goal through the penalty. But then we conceded the second goal and the last goal, there is not much to say about it. We said to the boys (keep your) heads up, and we will see what will happen going forward.”
Despite falling in the Round of 16, Amajita will be proud to have put up a great fight in the four matches they played – coming out with two wins and two defeats. They lost to France in the opening match (2-1), managed back-to-back victories against New Caledonia (5-0) and the USA (2-1), before losing 3-1 to Colombia. This brought an end to a journey that started in 2024 when they won the COSAFA U20 Cup. They then lifted the CAF U20 Africa Cup of Nations trophy in Egypt earlier this year which saw them qualify for the World Cup in Chile.
Mdaka was full of praise for his charges and also gave credit to the supporters who backed this team all the way until the last match.
“We really appreciate the support. We always got messages on our phones daily to show that the country was behind us, which was something we need. We want the country to know that we would have loved to play in the quarterfinals but football being football, we could not. But we want to say to them it will come, and if we continue working hard with the support, we will represent the country well, and I think we did here,” concluded Mdaka.
South Africa becomes the third African country to be knocked out in the tournament following Nigeria’s 4-0 loss to Argentina, while Egypt didn’t get out of their group. Morocco remains the sole African representative in the 2025 FIFA U20 Men’s World Cup and will face Korea Republic on Friday. Amajita are expected to land in Johannesburg on Friday afternoon.
