Cosafa Beach Soccer Championship Seychelles to face African giants in tough group |17 September 2022
Seychelles have been drawn in the toughest group of the 2022 Council of Southern Africa Football Associations Beach Soccer Championship to be played in Durban, South Africa next week.
Defending champions Mozambique and 2015 Beach Soccer Africa Cup of Nations winners Senegal feature in group A alongside hosts South Africa and Seychelles.
The competition, also known as the Hollywoodbets Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Beach Soccer Championship, will take place in Durban from September 25 to October 1.
The Seychelles team will leave for South Africa on Thursday or Friday next week in time for the start of the competition the following Sunday.
Seychelles’ first group match will be against South Africa on Sunday September 25. They will play Mozambique the following day and meet Senegal in their last group game on September 28.
The winners and runners-up of group A will meet those of group B in a cross knockout in the semifinals. Group B is made up of Egypt, Mauritius, Tanzania and Uganda.
According to coach Edmond Robert, the Seychelles team are training daily and the final selection will be announced this weekend.
Fourteen players and six officials will make up the Seychelles delegation.
“Our group is the toughest of the two,” coach Edmond acknowledged. “I think we have, more or less, the same level as South Africa. On paper and based on past achievements, Mozambique and Senegal should be more superior than us, but this is football, anything can happen.”
Coach Robert explained that if the players remain focused and apply the game plan given to them ahead of each encounter, they should be able to give a good account of themselves.
“Having said this though, the bottom line is that this is a very difficult group. If we manage to scrape through, it will be a great achievement,” he said.
For this competition teams will get three points for an outright win in the group stages. If their win is only achieved in over-time, two points will be awarded. If the win is achieved via penalty-kicks, then the winners will receive one point. There will have to be a winner for each match with no draws.
A match is split into three 12-minute periods, meaning the total length of a game is 36 minutes. However, the clock does stop when the ball is out of play, making games a bit longer actually.
There is no offside rule in beach soccer. A three-minute break is given between each 12-minute period.
The following is the full schedule of matches:
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