Stucky Zenith defeat the 300

In the battle to be the best of the Newcastle Court Soccer Association Boston Premier League (NCSABPL), rivalries are bound to occur and challenges meted out.

At the same time, players who are destined to shine have been identified as the league kicks into second gear.

On Monday, the league action continued with B-League, top of the table Juventus rolling over the opposition and taking the game from Ababeel.

Juventus star striker, Cladwyn Jacobs, once again managed to net in a hat-trick, taking his current goal tally total to eight goals in just three games.

“I go out and try to score as much as possible. I set myself a target of six to eight goals a game and try and achieve it. I haven’t yet hit this target, but I will,” said the confident Cladwyn.

Among Juventus’s key players are defenders, Malinbongwe Malinsele and Suveer Ramsaroop, both players forming a solid defence that has yet to be broken.

Sherman Daniels and Dumelo Kekana are midfield masters for Juventus, with Dumelo being labelled by his teammates as the Mesut Ozil of Newcastle.

Currently, Juventus is leading the B-League and team’s strength and chemistry clearly led to its dominance.

In featured game of the week, Stucky Zenith faced Spartans to secure a win, which trust them from second place to the top of the table.

Both Stucky Zenith and Spartans have players worth challenging for the top spot, and the clash between the sides was extremely well contested.

Spartans seemed to have picked themselves up after their first game defeat to Lusitano last week.

In the first half, Spartans dominated the game, and made Stucky Zenith work hard to get a touch on the ball.

This start seemed to be the ideal way forward for Spartans, and they layered the pressure on their opponents while they moved forward as a unit.

However, this may have been their fault, because the moment they lost the ball, a quick counter attack from Stucky Zenith, led by striker Sandile Magagula, the sweet flowing team opened up the scoring.

This one goal lead was short-lived after player manager, Mobeen Seedat cracked, in a stunner which ricocheted off the post and into the goal, past the stunned Zenith keeper, Irfaan Khan.

Both teams began jousting for the lead once more, and through fancy footwork and a quick turn, Sandile once again put his team in the lead.

Not more than two minutes after the restart, Spartans retaliated with a stunner from star player Elton Geduld, better known on the field as ‘Sevens’, who smashed in a shot from just after the halfway mark. It kept low and flew past the outstretched hands of Irfaan and into the bottom right corner of the goals.

Following this goal, the game became a midfield battle. With the Spartan side fatigued, it was only a matter of time before the Stucky Zenith force found the break they were pushing for.

By peppering the Spartans goalkeeper with shots from distance, close range, and well-worked corner routines, the Spartan wall slipped and gave up a scoring opportunity to Sifiso ‘Socks’ Buthelezi, who netted in the goal that put Stucky Zenith one goal up with the score reading three-two.

Spartans pushed hard to find an equaliser, but in doing so, allowed Jonathan Maseka of Stucky Zenith to break free of the defence in a perfectly timed run to receive an aerial through-ball from midfield maestro, ‘Pro’. He controlled the ball excellently with his back towards the goal, before turning and firing a volley to beat Spartan’s keeper and bring the score to four-two just three minutes before the final whistle.

With this win, Stucky Zenith is currently leading the log table ahead of closest competitors, Al-Ahly and Lusitano, however, at the time of going to print both these teams had a game in hand.

Since the NCSA inception, Stucky Zenith has won six of the eight competitions hosted, including last year’s Knock-out Championship, and Champions League.

“This year we want the League title. We know we have to bring our A game and we will,” said Stucky Zenith manager, Ziyaad Kamli.

He believed his team was more than capable of achieving this feat, and he would be pushing them to do so.

“We have no key players, we are a team of great players. Undoubtedly one of our best is Hudhaifah Randeree. He may just be 17 years old but his talent is not something you see everyday.”

The same thing can be said about Elton ‘Sevens’ Geduld who has undoubtedly become one of the most watched players in the NCSABPL.

During the match between Spartans and Stucky Zenith, the two star youngsters faced off quite a number of times in one-on-one situations, and the difference in skill levels was imperceptible.

Both lads have impeccable control, and while Hudhaifah has more strength on the ball, Elton is a faster customer, and makes it hard for any player to anticipate his movements.

Both players are definite candidates for the R10 000 Boston College bursary and will definitely provide loads of entertainment during the season.