Men's football team from Seychelles travels to South Africa for football tournament
Sport |Author: Betymie Bonnelame | May 23, 2018, Wednesday @ 14:00| 2990 views
Seychelles (in white) met Swaziland in a friendly match earlier this year which ended on a goalless score. (Seychelles Nation)
(Seychelles News Agency) - The Seychelles' men's national team leaves the country on Wednesday for South Africa to participate in the 18th edition of the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa).
The Seychellois side has been drawn in group A with the Comoros, Madagascar and Mozambique in the competition, which takes place from May 27 to June 9.
Coach Gavin Jeanne told SNA that his team is ready for the competition and he is happy with the draw as it gives his side a better chance of moving to the next stage.
“There is no easy pool in such a competition, but this one is not bad for us. We have at least two teams from the Indian Ocean and that gives us a chance,” said Jeanne.
The team from Seychelles will play its first match on Sunday, May 27 against Comoros.
Only the group winners will progress to the next stage and Coach Jeanne said that “our objective is to go further than the pool stage.”
“This competition will help us assess our level in the region and will give us a better idea on what we need to work on for the next Indian Ocean Islands Games,” said Jeanne.
As part of the preparation for the Cosafa tournament, Seychelles met Swaziland in a friendly match which ended on a goalless score earlier this year.
All 14 members of the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) are competing in the annual tournament. The first week of the competition will be the group stage where each team plays three games in their pools.
In the Cosafa tournament, the teams are seeded based on the results attained by the countries in previous Cosafa tournaments only.
After the six teams who are eliminated from the group stage, they will be replaced by the top six seeds, who arrives at the quarter-final stage. These will be defending champion Zimbabwe, last year’s runner-up Zambia, host country South Africa and Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland.
Winner of the competition last year was Zimbabwe who defeated Zambia 3-1 in the final.