Dra are crowned champions of the Top 8 of the ANLFA Promotional League
ALEXANDRA -– Dra FC wins the ANLFA Promotional League's Top 8 while Eagles FC wins the SAB League's Top 8.
Dra FC was crowned champions of the first Top 8 competition of the Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association (ANLFA) Promotional League after a dramatic penalty shootout against Royal Lions.
The Top 8 game, played at the Alexandra Stadium, failed to produce an outright winner as the two teams were deadlocked 1–1 after the 90 minutes of regulation time and went straight into penalties that was won by Dra 4–2.
Dra penalty takers scored four of their five takes while the Sandringham-based Lions only managed to convert two, with Dra keeper Bongani Sibanyoni saving two.
Dra started the match with a clear game plan, to surprise the master hunters at their own game with quick goals before they could even settle down to plot a hunting pattern, let alone execute it.
The master destroyer of the as yet to be drafted Lions plan was the Dra skipper himself, Busani Mthethwa, who led from the front to become the first to draw blood as early as in the ninth minute of the game.
This was from a set-piece that Lions keeper Bornwell Matimba had covered but then gifted the opponents with a goal when he let it slip out of his hands into the back of the net.
Dra kept the pressure on the seemingly hapless Lions but could not convert the numerous chances they created and settled for a narrow 1–0 lead at halftime.
The Lions came back a transformed side and started asking questions from the first whistle of the second stanza, and Tlotlo Mokoka thought he had found the equaliser with his thunderous shot but was denied by Sibanyoni’s brilliant save.
But that gloom and doom of the failure to convert by Mokoka were short-lived as hard-working Emmanuel Bosaga rattled the net with a beauty to level the scoreline in the dying minutes of the game.
Meanwhile, ForwardZone’s senior events manager Raymond Marutha expressed his delight at having kitted all the finalists of the Top 8 games of the ANLFA Promotional League and that of the SAB League, including the women’s section and that of the masters.
“This was our way of giving back to the community of Alexandra that we work with on a number of other projects. When the Maisha Molepo Foundation [organizers of the games] approached us for assistance, we couldn’t say no,” Marutha said.
Other results:
Tsamaya Boys 0 Eagles FC 1 (SAB League Top 8)
Benfica 2 (4) Cameroon 2 (2) (Masters Section)
Bluebirds Ladies 1 Norwood Young Stars Ladies 0 (Women’s Section)
Related article:
Alexandra Northrand Local Football AssociationYear-End final rescheduled
