Competing in the under 12 Danone
Nations Cup world finals was a life changing experience for the 12 young soccer
players from Mophela Primary School in Ilanga, KwaZulu-Natal.
The school is based in a poor
community and does not have a soccer field on which to play and therefore the
players have to walk a couple of kilometres to a nearby piece of ground.
But they did not let their
circumstances hold them back in any way as they played against professionally
run, well-resourced teams from around the world, finally finishing in 27th
position.
It was a case of firsts all the
way for the boys – the first time away from home for many of the boys, the
first time on an airplane and the first time overseas for all of them.
Seeing New York, as well as
meeting boys their age from all over the world was an obvious highlight.
The big football lessons learned
were that soccer is a mind game – you must learn to anticipate and to read the
game. It’s about performing for the entire game, not about producing isolated
moments of brilliance.
The boys came home as improved
and well rounded players from the experience, ready to implement what they
learned.
They played seven games in all,
winning three and losing four. They ended up 3rd in the preliminary
round pool, which put them into the playoffs for positions 17 to 32 and they
eventually beat England 2-1 in their final match for the 27th place.
They beat England 3-2 in the
preliminary stage and their other victory was a penalty shootout win over
Senegal in the second round.
The team was beaten by the United
Arab Emirates 2 – 0 in their first game of the tournament and they went on to
beat England ending their league in third place after being beaten 3 – 0 by
Indonesia.
A Lesson learnt from the Group
phase of the tournament was that South Africa is not that far behind the other
nations in terms of skill and physicality. The main difference is that
they lack the self-confidence to take their chances when they present
themselves, and they are sometimes guilty of over-elaborating, dribbling for a
moment too long and often losing possession as a result.
Against the UAE the SA team was
extremely skilful and often did little tricks to get past their opposition,
while the UAE was a well trained and structured team. South Africa dominated
territory and possession and had many chances, but they did not take advantage
of any of them. The UAE had fewer chances and managed to score two goals on the
counter attack.
The second match was against
England. South Africa dominated the match and went up 3-1 in no time, thanks to
a hat trick by Njabulo Ndlovu. They then made a couple of substitutions that
nearly cost them the game. It was important, however, that all the players got
a chance to play and that they feel part of the tournament. They eventually won
3-2.
Indonesia’s
strategy was simple: defend solidly, and don’t concede goals. They then used
their giant number 11 player on the counter attack and he scored two goals for
them, and set up the third.
The second day of the tournament
saw the teams involved in classification games for positions 17 to 32. In their
first second-round playoff game South Africa took on Belgium. They let a weak
side dominate them. Belgium had quite a few chances in the first 10 minutes of
the game but it took a goalkeeping error for them to score the only goal of the
match.
They got their
second victory when they beat the team from Senegal on penalties following a
tight 0-0 draw in regulation time. The game was a tense affair. Neither
team was prepared to lose and did not manage to capitalize on the few good
chances to score. South Africa finally won the penalty shootout 3 – 2
with goalkeeper, Ndumiso Gumede scoring the winning goal.
Coach, Siyabonga Ndimande,
decided, in the final game of the day, against Bulgaria, to start with all of
his substitutes. Unfortunately the experiment backfired, and the team soon
found themselves 3-0 behind. He made some substitutions and they made an
impact, clawing back to 3-2.
Even though the team lost the
game the coach was very happy with the decision that he made to play the
substitutes. “There are no tourists in the team,” he said. “All of the players
flew to New York to play and it is not fair on the bench players if they do not
get a chance.”
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