Hard-fought draw with SuperSport United

Innocent Masuku scored arguably one of the best individual goals in junior football, to help the Benoni Cedars u-15 SAFA Ekurhuleni League side maintain their three-year unbeaten run, when they earned a hard fought 1-1 draw with the SuperSport United u-15s, on Saturday, June 7, in a friendly match at the Tshwane University of Technology grounds.

When the hosts took the lead in the opening stanza, the East Rand side fought back and controlled most of the match against a physical SuperSport side.

Cedars came into the fixture with 11 players and had to dig deep to keep their more fancied opponents at bay.

“We had the majority of possession, especially in the second period, and created some great chances,” said Cedars coach Wesley White.

“Their opening goal kind of got us down for a second, but we rebounded and started to play our game; unfortunately, we only got the one goal.”

The Pretoria-based side opened the scoring in the 20th minute, when a long ball caught the Cedars back line off guard and the midfielder, Sipho Siso, calmly put it past the Cedars keeper to make it 1-0.

Apart from this goal, United didn’t have much of a sniff at the posts in the first half, aside from the early marker.

In fact, they registered only a single shot at goal.

The Benoni outfit looked organised defensively and dominated possession, but simply couldn’t crack the stingy United back line.

Cedars midfielder Kamogelo Mabena, who was playing on the wing of a 3-5-2 formation, also caused some problems for the Pretoria side with his presence on the wing, but a fairly uneventful first half ended with United 1-0 up.

Cedars nearly struck on the counter early in the second half, but United goalkeeper Tyrelle Jugdeo disrupted the play with well-timed sliding clearance at the edge of his box.

Just a few minutes later, however, the “Green Machine” got their equaliser.

Midfielder Innocent Masuku curled a free kick around the United wall and into the top corner, to get the amateur side on the board.

Cedars kept pushing forward in the latter stages of the second half and came close again in stoppage time, when Dodo Masuku alertly sent a long ball down the flank to Mabena.

This time, the midfielder played a cross into Masuku, but his shot towards goal was blocked before the final whistle sounded.

“We have some very good players who are continuing to show their progress and we have to remember that this is a development team,” Wesley White said.

“It is to get our boys to the next level, and playing in this type of physical and well-organised team is going to help our development and, hopefully, help some of our boys get scouted by these PSL teams.”