South Africa U23 captain Tercious Malepe has vowed to lead his team to the Tokyo 2020 - what would be his second Olympics.
The 22-year-old centreback leads his side into battle with U23 Afcon hosts Egypt in Tuesday evening’s semifinal.
Victory will take them to the final and book their tickets to the Olympic tournament. Should they fail in their mission, they will get another chance in the third-place playoff with the winner of that game also qualifying for the Games.
TALENT: South African defence will have to be on the lookout for Egypt's Ramadan Sobhi. Picture: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters.
And having competed at Rio 2016, he says: “Playing in the 2016 Olympic Games was a good experience for me and my only wish is to see my teammates gaining the same experience as well.
“We have been speaking about it and everybody is just highly motivated to realise this goal.
“Not everybody gets the opportunity to feature in two back-to-back Olympics games and this is one opportunity I really do not want to miss in my playing career.
“I am just grateful to be playing with guys who share the common vision."
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/TotalAFCONU23?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TotalAFCONU23semi-final tie against Egypt tomorrow at Cairo Stadium.
The match will kick-off at 20h00.🇿🇦 @CAF_Online pic.twitter.com/ByqbRAnpcj
— SAFA.net (@SAFA_net)
Turning his attention to Tuesday’s opponents, Malepe reckons they will sit back to hit SA on the counter. But Amaglug-glug are yet to concede in the tournament and the skipper adds: “You can be rest assured that the boys are hungry to push for a win in this one.
“Our goal is to qualify for next year’s Olympic Games, and we will stop at nothing."