South Sudan's age cheating at Afcon opens quarter-final door for Crowie's SA U17s

South Africa made it through to the quarter-finals of the U17 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) and will play against Senegal on Wednesday.

After winning only one of their three Group B matches and earning three points, the Amajimbos were on the brink of returning home from host nation Algeria.

They lost 2-0 to Morocco in their opening Afcon game, but then bounced back with a 3-2 win against Zambia, a team they had previously lost to twice in December 2022.

The team began packing their bags after they suffered a disappointing 3-2 defeat to Nigeria in their last group match on Saturday.

However, thanks to the Cameroon upset on Sunday, the SA U17 outfit snuck through to the knockout rounds of the tournament as one of the two best ranked third-placed teams alongside Congo, after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) disqualified South Sudan for age cheating last weekend.

The decision nullified all results against the fourth-placed teams with South Africa losing all their points as a consequence. They had to wait on the seemingly unlikely outcome of Sunday's match between defending champions Cameroon and Burkina Faso.

The latter came from a goal down to stun Cameroon 2-1, which saw SA hopes float once more as defeat left the Cameroonians on zero points but with an inferior goal difference of -3 to South Africa.

As a result, Duncan Crowie's team proceeded to the quarter-finals and also keep their hopes of World Cup qualification alive.

"I think everything started before the game between Cameroon and the Burkina Faso," Crowie told reporters via SAFA media.

"We played and the idea was to win the game against Nigeria for us to go through [and] not to wait for anybody like we did last night for the Cameroon and Burkina Faso [result].

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