Fifa has announced the date for the draw for the Olympic Men and Women Football Tournaments.
The draw will be conducted at the Home of Fifa in Zurich on 21 April and will be streamed live on the Fifa YouTube channel.
Like the rest of the world, the Olympic Games which will be hosted in Tokyo were threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Games was forced to be postponed until 2021 and will now go ahead with South Africa among 14 teams who have qualified.
David Notoane’s charges will participate alongside Ivory Coast and Egypt as the African representatives.
Notoane has called up 24 locally-based players for a training camp in Durban.
Stellenbosch’s Ashley Du Preez is amongst those the U23 coach highlighted as crucial in this camp because they are new to the setup.
Keanu Cupido, Fagrie Lakay (both Cape Town City), Luke Fleurs (SuperSport United) and captain Grant Margeman (Mamelodi Sundowns) are some of the other names from the Cape that are in the U23 national mix.
Notoane says: “We further want to sort out our centreback position and make sure that when the time comes for selection‚ we are ready.”
This is great news for centrebacks such as Cupido and the highly-rated Fleurs who could put their hand up in the friendly matches organised against KwaZulu-Natal teams during the camp.