By Jafferson Ndhlovu,

Zimbabwe U20 mentor Bekithemba Ndlovu is hoping for better fortunes in the just conducted draw for the 2018 Cosafa U20 tournament. The draw was done in Johannesburg South Africa yesterday.

Defending champions and host nation, the Chipolopolo starlets will be hoping to retain the trophy on home soil. As they have been paired in group A. Zimbabwe is in group C.

The Youngg Pharaohs of Egypt and The Young Uganda Cranes make grand entrances to this year’s edition as they are the invited participants for the 2017 edition.

Zimbabwe had a forgettable tournament in 2016 hosted by eventual finalists South Africa. And would love to do better this time around. In one of the bitter results of that edition, was a 5-1 bashing at the hands of eventual champions Zambia.

Coach Ndlovu and his two assistants Mike Madzivanyika and Mark Mathe have been busy. Ndlovu is conducting his trials in Zimbabwe’s second biggest city Bulawayo. Which is his base and where he owns top flight football club Bantu Rovers, famed for its avalanche of youngster going on to play at the top level, and doubles as a coach too. While his twices are doing their thing in the capital city Harare.

The two camps will merge soon to select a team to take on the almost 800km trip to Kitwe in Zambia. The host mining town of the tournament.

Ndlovu spoke to the Herald newspapers and had this to say… There is no easy group, there is no group of death but all of them are tough because all of the teams from what I know, from what I have seen, can play football. So, even our group, we are going there to compete and we are going there knowing that every team, which we are going to play against, is a strong team,” Ndlovu said

He dded. “Obviously, we would want to win the Cup but there will be one winner at the end of the tournament. So, like I said, we are going there to compete, we are going in there to try and win games also.”

The tournament starts on the 6th and ends on the 16th of December 2017