Randburg boys’ and ladies’ teams qualified for Engen Cup

The Gauteng Development League (GDL) took a short break for another exciting Engen Knockout Challenge qualifier. The qualified teams will compete in the knockout tournament and the winners will represent Gauteng in the provincial tournament.

The local boys of Randburg Football Club U18 team did not disappoint as they completed a perfect qualifying round to secure the place at the Engen Knockout Challenge 2024.

They were grouped with Seven Stars, Opopo FC, White City Spurs and AC Milan in matches that were played at Marks Park.

They won all of their four matches qualifying top of the group with 12 points, scoring 12 and conceding three goals.

Assistant coach Tony Pearce explained they are very happy with getting 12 out of 12 points and qualifying for the main tournament. “We knew how important it is for the club to qualify for the knockout. We are really happy about the achievement.”

He added that the team focused and worked a lot on finishing and getting players inside the opposition box. “We focused on the final third more and being clinical in front of goal. Tournament football is a lot different; the time is shorter and there is a lot of nerves – especially if you concede first – the whole game plan has to change. We also learned from the last year’s experience.”

The Randburg squad is made up of GDL’s U17 and 19 players. Fortunately, the team gel well together, and looked like a well oiled machine.

“To mix the players was easy as from the beginning of the year they had some training together some nights and they support each other every week. Last year we had a young squad, and we were nervous but now it was a massive difference to have those boys with experience – they were calm and showed that they learnt.”

He added that they want to leave a mark in this competition and try to finish higher than they did last year.

“We will take it game by game; we are still going to be on group stages and we are hoping to make it to the knockout round. We are hoping we can get to the semi-finals which is better than last year’s top seven finish.”

The Randburg Angels (ladies’ team) impressively qualified for the Engen tournament in a tough group with three regional teams. Re-establishing after six months the women’s team left everything on the field to join the men’s team at the main event on July 5–7.

All the results:

Randburg 3–0 White City Spurs
Randburg 4–1 Opopo FC
Randburg 1–0 Sevens
Randburg 4–2 AC Milan

Randburg Angels 1–0 Napoli FC
Randburg Angels 1–1 Bantwana.