Benny’s in finals of U/12 championship

The Vhembe-based Benny’s Sports Development Academy is working hard to win the national finals of the U/12 Danone Nations Cup tournament tomorrow (Saturday).

The event will take place at the WJ Clements Stadium in Reiger Park, Boksburg. The winning team will represent South Africa in Morocco in the World Finals of the competition later this year.

Mr Mandla ‘Shoes’ Mazibuko, president of the South African Schools Football Association (Sasfa), believes the Danone Nations Cup plays an important role in introducing players at this age to competitive soccer. “We know that the stakes are very high at this level, as the ultimate prize is the opportunity to carry the national flag at the World Cup level. We trust that the winning school will be good ambassadors and will come back home with new knowledge about the world and about themselves.”

The aim of the tournament, worldwide, is getting children to believe in their dreams, says Danone South Africa’s Ms Sandra Dorville. “Football has the power to make dreams come true, to lift people out of their everyday circumstances. We want children as young as this to realise that,” she said.

Mr Mbishi Mokoena, coach of Benny’s Sports Development Academy, believes his school has an advantage because they have hostels and the players live on the school premises.“Since winning our provincials, we have been focusing on training. We want the team to come to the nationals prepared to the maximum,” he said.

He identifies a lack of goals as a problem for the team in the past. “We have been mainly paying attention to our strikers, but during our provincials we didn’t create a lot of opportunities for goals. Three of our games we won via penalties and we are not happy about that."

The participating schools are: Lukholo Junior Secondary School - 2nd time national finalists (Eastern Cape), Nelson Mandela Primary School - 2nd time national finalists (Free State), Bree Primary School, 2009 world final winners (Gauteng), Mophela Primary School (KwaZulu-Natal), Daniye Higher Primary School - 2013 national winners (Mpumalanga), Kgetleng Primary School - 2nd time national finalists (North West), Roodepan Primary School - 2nd time national finalists (Northern Cape), Restvale Primary School (Western Cape) and Benny’s Sports Development Academy (Limpopo).

Date:26 June 2015

By: Kaizer Nengovhela

Kaizer Nengovhela started writing stories for Limpopo Mirror in 2000. Prior to that he had a five year stint at Phala-Phala FM as sports presenter. In 2005 Kaizer received an award from the province's premier as Best Sports Presenter. The same year he was also nominated as Best Sports Reporter by the Makhado Municipality. Kaizer was awarded the Mathatha Tsedu award in 2014.

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