David Notoane has confirmed trimming the Olympic squad down from 78 to 40 players as he builds up to the Tokyo event.
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Speaking to the Siya crew on Wednesday, the junior national team coach also revealed that the final team for the tourney has also been revised from the initial 21 to only 18 as organisers try to control the numbers due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
"We've engaged with Sascoc (SA's sports committee) and the latest the developments are that the total number for the Olympic tournament is actually now 18. Of course we can take an extra four or five players given the pandemic, but it became necessary now to trim the number," the coach explained.
Notoane announced the provisional 78-man squad a year ago because the original date for the competition was July 2020, but the event was rescheduled.
"So many things have happened since we announced our squad of 78 – the local league went into the bubble and the new season also got underway, there's been a lot of football. All this time we have been monitoring players – those that helped the team qualify and the new ones that have been doing very well," he added.
"We had a camp in Saudi Arabia (in November last year) and that was almost a new team. The decision, after meeting with Sascoc, was to trim the team down to a sizeable squad of 40 that will be presented for accreditation purposes and data capturing. But it doesn't mean anyone that's not in the 40 cannot be pulled back in."
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In his preliminary squad, the number of overaged players hit double digits, but Notoane told the Siya crew he had now cut it down to less than 10.
"The key thing is that as long as the final 18-man squad is not registered, we always have the freedom to make the necessary changes until the final registration. We are in the final straight towards Tokyo, so let's have a focus group that we are working on," the coach said.
"We have about zoomed in on about five or six overaged players that we feel, for now, will be part of the core in key areas that could be our Achilles tendon. And we can always change it. I would say next week we should be making a formal announcement. There are a few things outstanding, including finalising a camp ahead of the Fifa date later this month."
Although there remains concern over the safety of hosting the Olympic Games, as things stand the event is going ahead and set to start in mid-July.
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Scroll the gallery above to see some of the overaged players Notoane had picked!
