Minerva is the new champion of SCZ Schools Tournament

Minerva Secondary School soccer team is the new champions of the 6th edition of the Sibusiso Cosmos Zwane (SCZ) Schools Tournament. The school was crowned champions after they annihilated Balfour Park’s Northview High School 6–0 in a one-sided match played at the Number 3 Square Grounds in Alexandra on 21 September. 

This was all due to the sheer football brilliance of Katlego ‘KG’ Mampa, with a little help from his friends, who single-handedly demolished the defending champions to help his school lift the trophy for the first time since the tournament was first conceptualised back in 2014.

The 18-year-old Katlego, who’s a former development player of Kaizer Chiefs and has since been snapped up by Highlands Park, was a thorn in the flesh of Northview and hence Alex News chose him as Man of the Match while tournament organisers SCZ Foundation named him the Player of the Tournament.

KG, as he is affectionately known to his teammates, scored a hat-trick in the first half of the game to give his side a 3 –0 lead as they went into the break.

Minerva’s first attempt at scoring was a header that came from Kamva Tinga in just a few seconds after the first whistle but was ballooned over the crossbar. This was quickly followed up by an attempt from KG but his shot went wide of the posts.

KG redeemed his earlier miss as he found the back of the net with a beautiful shot in the 10th minute. He was at it again when he banged in another beauty in the 30th minute before sealing his hat-trick eight minutes later.

Minerva and KG, in particular, started the second half from where they left off and continued to run rings around a hapless Northview, with KG almost adding a fourth goal to his name soon after the referee had blown for the resumption but his shot went well over the crossbar and into the adjacent houses.

Nhlakanipho Mazibuko added the fourth goal for Minerva in the 58th minute and 10 minutes later, Luyanda Tofu netted the fifth while their substitute, Lebo Manarele hammered the final nail in the coffin of the Northview team, to make the scoreline 6–0.

A disappointed Northview coach Enoch Maloka had no words for the miserable performance from his boys. “We were the defending champions and I expected us to do better than we did, but I am not surprised as everybody wanted to beat us and Minerva included.

“I can only congratulate my boys for reaching the final as defending champions but I must stress that it was not easy.” Maloka, a driver-cum soccer coach, believes his boys lost the game when they gave the opponents too much space but he lauded Minerva for their victory with a well-executed plan.

His Minerva counterpart Irvin Kunene, a matriculant of the Class of 2018 who has been coaching for many years and holds a Safa D Licence, was basking in the glory of being champions. “My job was made easy by the boys sticking to the game plan and infusing it with a non-stop attacking mentality that yielded good fruit,” he said.

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