Lyndhurst side Laz FC are 2019 Year-End champions of AMSL
LOMBARDY EAST – Lyndhurst-based side Laz FC's U13 team are the new champions of the 2019 AMSL Year-End Tournament.
Lyndhurst-based Laz FC’s U13 team came from a goal down to beat Extension 8 outfit Arsenal City FC 2–1 to be crowned champions of the Alex Masters Soccer League’s 2019 Year-End Tournament.
The tournament’s semi-finals were rained out last year forcing the organisers, in conjunction with the Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association, to reschedule the semis for 25 January and the final the following day partly due to the closure of schools for the end of the academic year.
In the semis played at the Altrek Stadium, City overcame tournament favourites Alex Royal Tigers SC while Laz dumped the not so Happy Birds to claim their spot in the final which was played at Victoria Grounds in Lombardy East.
Buoyed by dumping the favourites, City came into the final as the new favourites and proved it by being the first to draw blood through the boot of Axolile Ngwalase. This prompted the Extension 8 side to resort to a more defensive game in the hope of catching Laz on the break.
The strategy backfired as Laz applied all the pressure in the remainder of the first half in search of an equalising goal and they were duly rewarded minutes before the end of the first stanza of the game.
Hardworking Laz right-winger Andile Ncala, now a Kaizer Chiefs academy player who also featured in the VW Junior Masters Soccer Tournament last December, latched onto the ball from a poor clearance by City defenders, whizzed past two defenders before being fouled by the third inside the box, and the referee never hesitated in pointing straight to the penalty spot.
Tshegofatso Mofokeng put up his hand to take up the penalty and made no mistake in burying it, and the team finally got their elusive equaliser as the referee blew for half time.
Laz carried on where they left off in the first half and mounted attack after attack in search of a potential winner and got it when Tshepo Tshabalala, son of popular Sundowns player Oupa Manyisa, struck a beauty of a goal that left the City keeper at sixes and sevens.
Coach Pule Mbense immediately pulled him off the pitch as he celebrated his goal and replaced him. “I had already made a decision to substitute him as I felt he was tired and not performing to his best,” said Mbense.
“I feel excited having won the championship as my three-year plan of building a formidable side is finally coming to fruition. I have taken a number of the boys to various academies, including the School of Excellence and other tournaments,” Mbense added.
City coach Nicolas Ngwenya said the plan was to hold the game as ‘we’re aware of how dangerous they are if allowed to play their normal passing football and then beat them in transition balls but that never worked’.
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