Kaizen Football Academy’s (KFA) U/17 football team stamped its authority in the quarterfinals second leg of the HopSol U/17 tournament when they knocked Döbra U/17 out by a 2-0 score line at the Jan Möhr Football Field last Friday afternoon. KFA, who just returned from participating in a Southern First Division tournament last weekend, progressed through a 4-0 aggregate score line to the semi-finals of the tournament, where they will face a yet-to-be known opponent.
Paulus Manasse scored both goals for KFA, one in each half, with his first goal in contention for being the fastest goal of the season after he rattled the net just 10 seconds after the start of the match.
Döbra suffered the same score line when the two teams met in the first leg and did not show any signs of improvement or readiness for this match. “This is not the result we wanted; at least we could have done better. It’s unfortunate, but yes, one team has to progress to the next round. It’s a pity we are the team that has to bow out, but we will come back stronger next time,” coach Henry Namulele of Döbra said.
Namulele said KFA were very good on the day, and they took the opportunities they created to score while his team squandered theirs. “The game was fine, but I feel the officials made some bad calls as well. When you look at this game, we only get to play on our out weekends and long weekends, which means most of the players travel a lot during that time. “So we mobilise the players we have in our reserves, which makes us field a weak team. Today most of our first-choice defenders were not available, which meant I had to change wingers to defenders. So for me, in the near future, we need to bring in other players and allow them some playing time to help in instances like this,” he said.
Coach James Britz was all but smiles as he progressed to the next round despite having eight players out on injury.
“These boys showed they are part and parcel of KFA, and it again shows that development is taking place within the club. It’s difficult when eight of your first 11 are out (seven have injuries), and one went on a tour with ACFA to Cape Town,” Britz said.
Britz said his team has shown some consistency, but he lamented the number of injuries suffered at the SFD tournament in Swakopmund. “We went to Swakopmund for a tournament and came back with a lot of injuries. But I must congratulate the boys because they fought against a very good side,” he said.
He said they will assess how many players will return from injuries while considering whether to participate in the next tournament scheduled for next weekend or not.
Britz said their training schedule will continue twice a week as planned, even though they have not enough time with the boys. Meanwhile, DAMA SC U/17’s hopes of progressing to the next round were also dashed on Friday when they were held by Baller Boys 2-2 after losing the first leg 5-0 last week.
Coach Silas Shimakeleni says his side
had started off well and controlled the
game, but was denied a penalty by the referee in the second half.
“I would say there were a couple of bad calls from the referee because after we were denied that penalty, Baller Boys equalised, and came back into the game,” he said.
Elsewhere, in the U/11 competition, Kasaona FA continued their dominance over Kamuvare FC, beating them 2-0, while SKW B lost their match 6-0 to Riverheights FA on Saturday at the Jan Möhr Football Field.