Their team manager, Ernest Mathonsi, explained that what is different this year is that all the players also belong to local soccer clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe boys train at school, and at their clubs, and they play club football every weekend. This helps as they know each other well and the communication on the field is also good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
There is also more support and involvement from the parents this year, Mathonsi said. \u201cThey have been supplying kit, and have been at our regional games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniye Primary will definitely be their biggest competition. \u201cThey get into the provincials every year, and have even been to the Danone Nations Cup world finals, so they are seasoned Danone Nations Cup professionals. But Sekusile is up for the challenge,\u201d Mathonsi said.<\/p>\n
Getting into the provincial finals is important for the players, Mathonsi believes. \u201cThere will be scouts from the professional clubs there and players stand a chance of being noticed on their ability, regardless of the results.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players will get to interact with players from different areas in Mpumalanga which will expand their minds,\u201d Mathonsi said. \u201cThey will see how others handle the technical and tactical sides of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is hoping that, coming from such a poor area, they will win on Saturday and get into the nationals so that the boys will get to experience life outside of their province.<\/p>\n
Sekusile won their regional finals at the Ka-Mhulshwa Stadium in Malelane on the 15th of May.
\nFour schools took part in a round-robin format. Sekusile\u2019s first match was against Msogwaba Primary School from Kanyamazane. Their defence was poor, so it was an easy 2-0 win.<\/p>\n
The second game, against Benjamin Primary School from Matsulu, was even easier. They were not prepared and made lots of mistakes and their communication was poor. Sekusile won the game 6-1.
\nThen they met Shayaza Primary School from Sibange, which was the decider as both teams had won their other 2 matches. Shayaza\u2019s defence was poor and Sekusile capitalised and won 5-1.<\/p>\n
The provincial finals kick off at 10:00 on Saturday. Join us at the event for great football fun and delicous Danone produts Yogisip and Nutriday courtesy of the sponsors, Danone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Themba Senamela Stadium in Middelburg will be the venue for the Mpumalanga provincial finals in the Danone Nations Cup on Saturday and Sekusile Primary of the Kamaqhekeza rural area in Ehlanzeni district, will be there for the first time after eight attempts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2844,"featured_media":67308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Tobie van den Bergh","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}