City Academy player Shingirai Elvis Chayanzika will be joining the Juventus Academy in Italy in August after penning a five-year deal with the club.
The 13-year-old Zimbabwean caught the attention of the Italian football giants scouts during their assessment tour at the European club recently.
Confirming the latest development, City Academy Technical Director Agrippa Guti said he is excited about the deal and is looking forward to churn out more youngsters to Europe.
“We are glad to announce that one of our players Shingi Chayanzika was outstanding and Juventus rushed to sign him for further development going forward. It feels great that we have managed to send at least a player to Europe. We spent three weeks in Italy with Juventus as they were assessing our academy players and it was during that period that Shingi got scouted. He will be joining Juventus every school holiday starting in August this year for the next five years,” he said.
Owing to Zimbabwe’s ban from the international football community, a player can only move permanently to Europe when they reach 18 years.
Junior football development has since become the backbone for success at senior level hence the need for the country [Zimbabwe] to seriously consider bringing back junior leagues or at least make it mandatory for topflight clubs to have junior teams in their ranks.
A case study of Senegal and Morocco will speak volumes of how important it is to nurture talent at a young age as evidenced by how their game has grown so rapidly in the recent past.
Moroccan teams have grown to become so competent on the continental stage while Senegal have suddenly emerged as the new African giant with their U17, U20 and the senior national teams winning the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations titles in their respective age groups The West African’s beach soccer national team also went onto win the AFCON recently to sum up the benefits derived from having a sound junior policy.
