MultiChoice Diski Challenge has filled the gap between the Premier Soccer League senior sides and the up-and-coming young sides.
“We have never been in this position and this is a new era for us,” said Black Aces u.23 Head coach Jonas Mabusela. “We are on a learning curve, first we thought that we were in the desert, but now it becomes a fantasy. Our team is learning and the club is learning very fast. Whether we will win the semi-finals to advance or not, it is the experience that counts.”
The semi-finals of the MDC will take place this coming Sunday February 15 in Port Elizabeth. A trilogy of Pretoria clubs will be in action and with the only other club outside this area, Black Aces. This will ensure that at least one club from the Jacaranda City will be in the finals, and the question arise whether the ace will be played by Black Aces and be in the final as well.
AmaZayoni, who stunned one of the form teams of the competition in Bloemfontein Celtic in the previous round, face another of the outstanding clubs in Mamelodi Sundowns in the last four.
“If we can start singing that we want to be in the final, we’ll be fooling ourselves,” Mabusela explained. “Because we are going to face one of the biggest teams in Sundowns. We preparing on facing them, our focus is mainly on Sundowns right now.”
Alex Bapela,Mamelodi Sundowns, Head coach of their team, said that they are going out to enjoy the game and knows Aces is a team to be reckoned with on the field.
The three clubs from Pretoria are SuperSport United, Mamelodi Sundowns and Tuks. This confirms the fact that there is an abundance of young talent gathering in this city.
SuperSport United coach Kaitano Tembo admits that their focus is solely on facing city rivals University of Pretoria in the MultiChoice Diski Challenge semi-finals this weekend.
The competition reaches its penultimate stage when the semi-finals will be played out in Nelson Mandela Bay this weekend.
Matsatsantsa set up a last four showdown against Tuks after beating Platinum Stars 2-0 in the quarter-finals in Durban at the start of the month.
The Students ousted Orlando Pirates with a shock 5-2 win, with Tembo saying they would like to take each game as it came, rather than getting ahead of themselves.
“We just have to take it game by game,” he said. “We always want to take it one game at a time. The focus now is the semi-final, which we will play against a Tuks team that has been,” Selaotse “Sly” Mosala, University of Pretoria coach, said.
”We have played many games against them on many occasions and this might seems to be a derby, but in Port Elizabeth. We know what is expected of us, and we will go out and play our game and enjoy it.”
Entry into the stadium is free and tickets are available at all Shoprite/Checkers stores and Computicket outlets across the province. A limit of two tickets per person per day will apply. No tickets will be issued at the ground on match day.
