Defending champions South Africa go into the 2018 MOPANI Copper Mines COSAFA Under-20 Championships among the favourites again and their statistics over the last two tournaments show just why.
The regional championship has been played for the last two years after having taken a break and in that time ‘Amajita’ have been the stand-out competitors.
They have played 10 matches, reaching the final on both occasions, and have won nine of those fixtures, only losing out to Zambia in the 2016 decider on home soil.
In that time, they have netted an impressive 24 goals and conceded only four times, showing proficiency at both ends of the field.
This year’s hosts Zambia have the second-best record, despite mixed performances in the last two years where they claimed the title in 2016 and then failed to get out of their pool in 2017.
They have won five of their seven matches though with just a single defeat, which came against East African guest nation Uganda last year. They have also averaged two goals per game and only conceded five times.
The only other sides with three or more wins in the last two years are Lesotho and North African guest side Egypt.
In all there have been 17 different competitors in the last two years, with Madagascar the only full member of COSAFA that has not taken part in at least one of the two competitions.
COMBINED TEAM RECORDS FROM THE LAST TWO COSAFA UNDER-20 CHAMPIONSHIPS
| TEAM | P | W | D | L | GF | GA |
| South Africa | 10 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 24 | 4 |
| Zambia | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 5 |
| Lesotho | 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 6 |
| Egypt* | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 4 |
| Angola | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 9 |
| DR Congo* | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 |
| Uganda* | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 6 |
| Malawi | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 7 |
| Zimbabwe | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Mauritius | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| Mozambique | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| Namibia | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Sudan* | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 |
| Swaziland | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 10 |
| Comoros | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Botswana | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 10 |
| Seychelles | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 11 |
*Invited guests