THE SCHOOL TO REPRESENT SOUTH AFRICA AT THE DANONE NATIONS CUP WILL BE KNOWN ON SATURDAY

At approximately 4pm on Saturday, 22 June, all will be revealed!   The Under-12 team that will represent South Africa at Wembley, London in the Danone Nations Cup World Finals will have ended months of qualifiers. But just reaching the National Finals is an achievement for all nine provincial winners.  Each team started their qualification process in March and to date have played a minimum of 10 games each. 

“I want to see where the Queen of England lives,” said Katleho Mofokeng, from Kgomoco Primary School from Sharpeville in Vereeniging, after the school won the Gauteng provincial finals and found themselves a step closer to a trip to London.  “The Queen is respected by all soccer players and some of the best players in the world come from her country.”

But team coach, Musa Somora, has a different reason for going to London.  “I admire European football as the players are so disciplined on the field and train hard, particularly to score goals. As a coach I would like to go to London and see how the techniques of the other 31 countries playing.  I know I can learn a lot.”

Somora believes the reason the school won this year was due to the support from the principal.  “We have never progressed very far in the Danone Nations Cup, but last year the school decided that producing properly trained players will help South Africa in the future and improve our FIFA rankings so we were all sent on coaching courses, and this has paid off.”

But there are eight other schools in the running who would also like to experience playing on Wembley turf.

This is the first year that Siphumele Primary School from KwaZulu-Natal has entered the competition. “To get to the Nationals in our first year is a huge achievement,” said Sibusiso Phakathi.  “But I need to keep the players confident and calm and we are going to focus on one game at a time and not on London.”

Meanwhile Segolilew Primary School from the Free State’s coach, Moses Phumo believes the school has a good chance of winning. “This is the second year in succession we have reached the national finals and half the team played last year so we are well prepared.”

Teams competing in the National Finals are:

NORTHEN CAPE	Rietriver primary School
KWAZULU NATAL	Siphumelele Primary School
FREE STATE	Selogiloe Primary School
NORTH WEST	Kgotleng Primary school
MPUMALANGA	Danyeni Primary School
EASTERN CAPE	Kunzimbini Primary School
WESTERN CAPE	AH Barnard Primary School
LIMPOPO	Bantwane Primary School
GAUTENG	Kgomoco Primary School