Benny’s Care off to the national finals of Danone Nations Cup

POLOKWANE – Benny’s Care Sports Academy will compete in the national finals of the u/12 Danone Nations Cup at the WJ Clements Stadium in Boksburg on Saturday, where they stand a chance to win a trip to Morocco to participate in the world finals later this year.
Nine schools went through a qualification process that started in April and these teams will compete in the national finals.
Mandla “Shoes” Mazibuko, president of the South African Schools Football Association (Sasfa) believes the Danone Nations Cup plays an important role in introducing young players to competitive soccer.
“This helps them gain confidence and learn more about team and individual work on and off the field,” he says.
“It is with great excitement that we welcome the 16th national edition of the Danone Nations Cup, which is regarded as a catalyst for social cohesion and a medium for excellence in football. We know that the stakes are very high at this level as the ultimate prize is the opportunity to fly high the South African flag at the world cup level of Danone Nations Cup. We trust that the winning school will be good ambassadors and will come back home with new knowledge about the world and about themselves.”
Mbishi Mokoena, Benny’s Care Sports Academy, coach, says: “I believe the players have an advantage as they live in the school hostel, which gives them enough time to practise together. Since winning the provincial finals, we have been focusing on training, we want the team to come to the nationals better prepared. Getting our players together is very easy since they all stay on the premises”.
Mokoena identified a lack of goals as a problem for the team.
“We have been mainly paying attention to our strikers because we did not create a lot of scoring chances during the provincial finals. We won three of our games through penalty shoot-outs, which we were not happy about. The nationals are a different ball game and we need to score goals in order to progress and get an opportunity to play in the finals,” he adds.
He says the strategy has worked on the strikers, but other than that, everything is going to be the same, same players, same form of attack and the same style of play.
“I have been following the Danone Nations Cup Facebook page closely; I know which schools we will compete against. I am concerned about Gauteng, they always have competitive schools in all soccer tournaments, but we will be ready,” he says.