The South Africa national development football team, is a development football (soccer) team, which represents South Africa and is controlled by the South African Football Association, the governing body for football in South Africa. The team's main objective is to give international exposure to fringe home-based players, by allowing them to play 'B-level' internationals. Since the advent of the African Nations Championship, the team now attempts to qualify for and play at the event. Since 2008 SAFA have sent the team to the COSAFA Cup, instead of the senior team. The team has played at one African Nations Championship and two COSAFA Cups.
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Player eligibility[]
African Championship of Nations regulations require teams to be made up only of players from the association's national leagues. As the team is not an official national team, and does not play in FIFA sanctioned tournaments, clubs are not required to release players for matches. Usually the only Premier Soccer League players released are non-squad members. Many players are selected from the National First Division (second tier) and Vodacom League (third tier).
Match status[]
Matches played by the team are not classified as 'A-level' internationals. Thus caps awarded for matches do not count as senior national team caps. Matches played by the team also do not count towards FIFA ranking points, even when the team plays other countries' senior national teams.
The following 5 players have been selected by South Africa Development in the past 12 months, but were not selected in the squad to play the 2011 African Nations Championship, or withdrew from the squad due to injury. Only players available for call-up, not retired players.
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Algeria A
Khartoum Stadium, Khartoum, Sudan
Zimbabwe
Niger
Ghana
Sweden
Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit, South Africa
Palestine
2009