Siphumelele Primary to represent SA in Brazil

Siphumelele Primary School will represent South Africa at the Danone Nations Cup International Finals scheduled for Brazil in November.

This comes after the school winning the national finals of this U15 tournament in June.

A total of 400 young soccer players from 32 countries will take part in this event with the ultimate goal of lifting the competition’s trophy.

Siphumelele’s coach, Siboniso Ndwandwe said they are prepared for Brazil and worked with the Department of Education to secure a proper training ground and acquiring better training equipment such as balls and soccer kit for the team.

He said the players are technically good but their defending needs to be tightened up before the trip and he will be working on this hard over the next few months.

“The tournament was created with the aim of uniting the youth in a spirit of open-mindedness, sharing, fair play and respect,” said Danone South Africa’s communications specialist, Chantel Ehlers.

The competition is one of the largest soccer events for children aged between 10 and 12 in the world and is backed by former Real Madrid and France soccer legend, Zinedine Zidane who is the tournament ambassador.

The tournament has been existing for the past 15 years and about 2.5 million children have benefited from this competition.

It is not only about winning but to share experience with other players from different parts of the world. The tournament has gained credibility and lawfulness over the years due to the ever strengthening involvement of the national ambassadors in each country.

The SA ambassador is former Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs defender, Neil Tovey.