National under-17 coach Molefi Ntseki will have a selection headache for the World Cup later this year after a new group of players raised their hands for future call-ups.

Amajimbos played to a 1-1 draw with Mali on Sunday at Mbombela Stadium, without a host of players from the squad that surpassed expectations to reach the African Junior Championship final in Niger a month ago.

Players such as Mondli Mpoto, Keanu Cupido, captain Nelson Maluleke and highly rated Bidvest Wits midfielder Liam Jordan were unavailable for Sunday's match.

But they were hardly missed as the likes of Sanele Gaxa, Malebogo Modise and Walter Khubeka introduced themselves to international football in style.

"This is a lesson for everybody in this country, that we do have talent. We had players from Durban that we had never seen playing. Gaxa came in and these are the type of players we have in our country that we don't know about. When you give them a chance like this, they grab it," Ntseki said.

"Now we've got a better database in terms of players that are playing in this particular age group."

Ntseki is hoping Safa can secure more friendly matches ahead of the Under-17 World Cup in Chile in October.

"We are looking at having a tournament during the June holidays, where we will have all the boys. Maybe we can play Asian teams, South American teams and European teams so that by the time we go to Chile we would have played everybody."

The under-17s played the curtain raiser for the Bafana Bafana versus Nigeria clash and Ntseki has called for more of these matches to be organised.