Benny’s Sports Academy of
Tshiozi, a village outside of Louis Trichardt in rural Limpopo, will be
travelling to Paris next month to play in the world finals of the Danone
Nations Cup against the champion under-12 teams of 31 other nations.
And leading them will be
24 year-old Mbishi Mokwena, the coach who took them to the Limpopo and South
African titles in the competition, and the tactician behind their success.
Mokwena has an astute
footballing brain on his young shoulders, and he is continually scheming ways
to get around the problem that has faced all the South African teams at the
Danone Nations Cup world finals: their diminutive stature.
“I have been studying
the videos of past world finals tournaments and, frankly, I don’t see much
between the soccer played by the other countries and ourselves,” he said. “The
only obvious difference is our lack of size.
“I did see, however,
that the Brazilians made the third/fourth playoffs in 2014 and finished in 14th
position in 2015, with boys as small as ours, so there is no reason why we
can’t do well in France.”
Mokwena’s approach is to
work on the mental preparation of the boys, building their confidence.
“They must believe in
themselves,” he said “They have the talent and it doesn’t matter what
facilities the various different countries have, it is talent and tactics that
win games.
“We will be going to
France as a unit and we need to stay as a unit. We must not assume anyone is
better than us. It has been proven many a time that just because a team has better
equipment and playing surfaces, it does not mean they will automatically win.”
In preparing for the
tournament, he is getting the team to play matches against older teams, so that
they aren’t easily intimidated.
“Last year we could quite easily
have beaten the eventual champions, Bree Primary, and they ended up in 16th
place at the world finals. I use that example to show the boys that we need not
be afraid of the opposition we are going to face,” said.
Ambition Delight Mokwena
hails from Matswale village in Musina. His great-grandmother called him Mbishi
because she could not pronounce the name Ambition. He has a younger brother
Abenico, who is 22 years old and is currently studying tourism in at a college
in Polokwane and he is also a pastor in training.
The brothers were
brought up by their maternal grandmother Leah Mokwena who is a general worker
at the Musina Municipality, after their father left when Mbishi was six and his
mother died soon afterwards.
He did his primary
schooling at Makusha Primary School and Matriculated at Musina High School in
2011 and went on to get a certificate in IT at Scourer Computer & Internet
Training College in Louis Trichardt.
He found work in a
plastic factory, but his passion was sports development, so in 2012 he started
a soccer club in Musina called Mbishi Football Club and, against all odds, they
won the Musina Winter Games.
That led to him being
approached by Polokwane United Academy to train their junior teams. He soon
realised that the kids at the club were being taught soccer, but were not being
educated as well, so much to the annoyance of Polokwane United, he took them to
Centauri Soccer Academy where they received a better education.
He went with them as
coach and in 2014 they won the Department of Education’s SA School
Championship, and the Limpopo title of the Sasfa under-13 tournament.
He was spotted there by
Benny’s Sports Academy coach, and was offered a position at the school in 2015.
As a great supporter of
soccer development, Mbishi knew all about the Danone Nations Cup before he got
to the school. So, when the opportunity came in 2015, he knew what they needed
to do in terms of training. He managed to get the team through to the national
finals for the first time since the school started playing in the tournament
but they were knocked out of the semifinals by Bree Primary.
They repeated that feat this year
and went one further, winning the national title.
Now they face a greater
challenge, in a strange country, thousands of kilometres away from home.
Mbishi Mokwena is aware of the
obstacles they face. “We are going to tackle the world finals just like we did
the nationals. The players were out of their comfort zone there too, and also
came up against schools with better resources that ours,” he said. “We managed
to win the title against the odds there. The challenge is to get the players to
believe that they can do the same in France. They have the skills, now they
need the mental toughness.”
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