By Joshua Hendricks
Day Two of the Cape Town leg of the Engen Knockout Challenge wasn’t quite as sunny as the tournament opener – but Langa Stadium was still the place to be, rain or shine, as the Mother City’s young footballers continued to strut their stuff.
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The quarter-final games saw some top performances. One of the favourites, Cape Town City, brushed aside FN Rangers by knocking in 4 goals, while conceding nothing in a rather one-sided game begging for the whistle.
Another quarter-final was a bit of a throwback, as Cape Town Spurs and Hellenic tussled in the rain. But in the end the Urban Warriors held up their shield and hit the back of the net twice to kill the tie and progress to the semi-finals.
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But perhaps the biggest disappointment for Day Two was the fact that no LFA teams in the Boys division ended up qualifying for the semi-finals on Sunday.
Wanderers lost to Ubuntu Football by a small margin of 1-0, and Rebels FC lost by the same scoreline against Stellenbosch FC. Both teams really gave it their all – but sadly, it just wasn’t enough to get them to the next round, and it’s Ubuntu and Stellies who will be joining the Urban Warriors and the Citizens for the semis.
Our journalist, Joshua Hendricks caught up with Ubuntu Football Head Coach Moritz Kossmann.
“It’s a relief, to be honest. You know our history with the Bayhill tournament, where we had a similar situation against JL Zwane.”
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Kossman, the former Young Bafana coach, was referring to a quarterfinal game at the Bayhill Premier Cup, where they struggled to score a winning goal. The game ended up going straight to penalties, and they ultimately lost due to a heroic performance by the JL Zwane goalkeeper.
“So they also just shut up shop, with a low block. We had a lot of chances, but just couldn’t score. This felt very similar, and it turned into a defence vs attack, essentially. They made it very difficult.”
Luckily, the results were a bit different this time around.
“I’m just happy we won. Yes, we didn’t have the best solutions, but we still had enough to get it done. We go into the Semis, and we’ll need to up our levels and play better.”
That’s easier said than done, especially for a team that’s only only scored three goals so far in the tournament.
“In attack still, we’ve kept clean sheets but we haven’t scored as much as we’d like. Against the low block it’s stagnant. We ended up in a situation where we were just getting crosses into the box. It is a bit one dimensional, unfortunately.”
Heading into the semi-finals, Kossman said they’ll be working on addressing some of those issues.
“What you need then is what we spoke about half time. Is to have more combinations in the middle, so that we can attack down the centre and down the wing. We need to control the area outside the big box for the second ball, and that is also something we have to improve.”
The Engen Knockout Challenge semi-finals kick off today (10 July 2022) at 09:00. Stay tuned!
Edited by Nicklaus Kruger
