Mpumalanga under 21 team suffers a heavy loss

Even though the under 21 boys coached by Ditheko Marago, started the tournament on a high note after winning three of their first matches, efforts to pass through to the University Sports of South Africa (USSA), a team formed by university students from different institutions vanished.

USSA, the defending champions of the tournament, capitalised on the mistake done by the Mpumalanga team. In the first half at about 23 minutes of play; Mpumalanga failed to convert their penalty into a goal after one of their players was fouled in the box. The defending champions had an upper hand on the 27th minute and scored their first goal of the match. However, Mpumalanga managed to equalise in the 33rd minute.

Also read: M’langa team doing well at SAFA SAB under 21 National Championships

Things started to completely fall apart on the Mpumalanga side during the second half. USSA came with sparks flying in their attack which resulted in lots of mistakes to the defenders of Mpumalanga and resulting in them conceiving two penalties.

That was the moment where USSA managed to score four more goals to make it five. Towards the last minutes of the game, Mpumalanga scored their second goal to make the final score 5:2.
“We were playing nice football especially in the first half, but the boys started to lose concentration in the second half. Also the chances that we failed to convert into goals cost us a lot,” uttered the disappointed Marago. The coach; among other things, complained about is the time he had as part of preparation for the tournament.
Mpumalanga will be logging horns with the Western Cape on the losers’ finals to at least obtain third position. Both the losers’ finals and the final will played on Sunday at the Nike Football Center in Soweto.