Head of Development, Walter Steenbok has been following the U20 team’s progress since the African Championships and the Fifa U20 World Cup in Egypt where they lost to football powerhouse, Ghana on Tuesday night after taking a lead early second half.

Ghana led by captain, Dede Ayew came back from behind to beat Amajita 2-1 after extra-time.

“The future of South African football is in good position amid all the negative perception about our boys lacking strength, and so on. I think in my opinion they complimented that with their mental strength,” pointed out “Baresi” speaking to kaizerchiefs.com on Wednesday morning.

Steenbok felt that there are areas that the country needed to pay attention to moving forward. “We need to work on standard situations -- the use of free kicks and how to defend them. This is an area of concern for me. We conceded most of goals against Hungary from standard situations and it was the same with Ghana’s equaliser,” he said.

“The physical preparation is the second area. We need to prepare our athletes from the physical point of view before any tournament. The game against Hungary took a lot out of the boys and that showed on Tuesday night. In the last 20 minutes of the second half both teams showed signs of tiredness and the tempo game dropped a little bit.”

“Lastly, our short passing game is our strength in particular when you have dynamic midfielders like Thulani Serero, Mandla Masango and Dylan Claasen. Upfront I was impressed with the way strikers complimented each other, the movement on and off the ball, the tactical understanding and passing combinations.

“There are signs that some of the players in Serame’s team have a chance of making it big in football if they are properly nurtured. This is good for the country going to the World Cup in 2010,” he concluded.