U-20 AFCON: Egypt can win title but ‘must stop diving’ – Mkwasa

Photo Credit - Tanzania Football Federation.

Tanzania national team U-20 head coach Boniface Mkwasa has explained why the Egypt U-20 team may miss out on winning the TotalEnergies CAF U20 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) despite playing on home soil.

The North Africans scraped through to the quarter-finals following a 1-0 win against Tanzania in their final Group A fixture at the Suez Canal Stadium on Friday.

Ahmed Sharaf’s seventh-minute goal proved enough for the hosts, who finished the group stage level on seven points with South Africa and Sierra Leone, but progressed by virtue of a superior head-to-head mini-league involving the three tied teams.

Asked to predict who can win the trophy, Mkwasa told reporters after the Egypt game: “It is too early to comment on that, but the moment the remaining teams play, they get more experience, and fitness level of the teams will improve, so you can’t predict, who will take it.

“But most probably if the host country (Egypt) can organise themselves, they have got an advantage to win the trophy. But they are not going to win it, if they don’t work hard. They have to work hard instead of playing and then falling down. That way, they can’t, it will not be possible.

“They need to push themselves, so that they can play over 90 minutes without tiredness. They have a big chance, but they have to change the attitude of how they play. You see how can you play 20 minutes, and then the next 20 minutes you are falling down?

“You can’t succeed with that type of play. They need to push to play 90 minutes if possible, 100 minutes plus. They must be able to play for the long term without showing tiredness and diving all over the pitch.”

The win against Tanzania ensured that Egypt qualified for the last eight, and they managed to avoid the embarrassment of back-to-back group-stage exits as hosts, having also fallen at this stage in 2023.

Egypt will now face Ghana in the quarter-finals on Monday, May 12, at New Suez Stadium.