STEERING the SA under-20 team to the African Youth Championships (AYC) comes as a significant boost to Shakes Mashaba before taking up the Bafana Bafana head coaching job.

Amajita beat Cameroon 2-1 in Polokwane on Sunday to become the first national team to qualify for a major tournament since the 2009 U-20s went to the African and world youth champs.

Afterwards Mashaba - who has named a very young 34-man squad for Bafana's Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Sudan and Nigeria, including five players from the U-20s - spoke of a new era in SA football.

"For me to graduate to this new job, we needed this win. It gave me confidence. I'll be going into the Bafana camp talking as loud as I can," the coach pronounced.

"And they will listen, and say, 'This man comes from qualifying a team'. We're aware of the process, we'll build slowly."

Mashaba believes Amajita will provide the foundation building towards the 2022 World Cup.

"If you look at the current Nigerian team it was the one that played in the African and world youth championships.

"There are those who are still negative. But one thing I can tell you - the gods of football are starting to smile for us now.

"Our under-17s are about to qualify for the under-17 champs, our women have qualified for the African Women's Championship, the under-20s have qualified.

"We've got to prepare our team that everybody looks at, Bafana Bafana. But with these results we're getting I think our route can be smooth.

"What I want to tell people is they must stop this negativity. We are in a different era now."

Mashaba said the next pressing concern is to appoint an U-20 coach for the tournament in Senegal in March.