Namibia: Riverheights U/19 Edge City Pillars

It was yet another action-packed weekend, with a total of 53 games taking place over the weekend in the MTC HopSol Youth Football League.

Riverheights Football Academy's U/19 team collected three points on Saturday when they beat City Pillars with a solitary goal at the Trustco United Football Field. The tough encounter was mainly fought in the midfield, with four solid chances created for City Pillars, just for Riverheights to get one chance in the second half from a corner kick, which they converted to seal the deal.

Penda Ndivayele, Riverheights Football Academy's coach, was proud of his boys' performance but felt they could have done better in terms of goal-scoring opportunities.

"They did the best they could and perhaps next time we just have to push for more goals. Otherwise, the game itself wasn't really what I expected. It wasn't the way we expected the boys to play, but maybe it's one of those days when you just have it shady. Nobody's in form. Everybody's more like asleep today," he said.

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Ndivayele lamented that the boys still need to make quick decisions on the field, as their development is key to becoming better players going forward. "We have to really pay attention to the structure, which is basically for me a big problem in football. As we say, we're always here to develop players and to make them understand and make their own decisions based on whatever they have to do in different situations of the game."

He added, "So the main areas that we must fight more on are, the fitness and the awareness of the game itself. As a player, you need to be quicker and pass the ball more. It's not always just about goals. Basically, it's more like, you are improving the player, and you, as a players are improving yourself, not just, from the coach's side. But also learn from your mistakes, what you did wrong in the first game that you played and come improve the next one. So that's what we look at."

Coach Neville Geingob from City Pillars said his opponents got one chance and tucked it away, and that they felt they had the game in their hands.

"They got a chance and they put it in the net. For us, we have like four chances, five or six like that. In the first half it was about three chances. We're supposed to score. My striker was supposed to score a hat-trick, but I don't know what happened. Maybe it's not his day today," he shared.

"The shooting boots are maybe at the house. I don't know, but anyway, we'll go back to the drawing board and look through it to see what's wrong and then we can come back. But I can see Riverheights were fit, totally fit. This was our game, and we gave it away. My boys only had one day of training because of the exams; it was 50/50."

Elsewhere

Dama Soccer Academy's U/15 won 1 - 0 against Otjomuise Rising Stars (ORS) at the Jan Möhr Football Field. The goal came from an ORS defender's mistake in the first half, gifting Dama SA three points as the school holiday break commenced.

Coach Nelson Chipandeni from ORS said he could not believe they scored the only goal against themselves, as the game was a tight one and he was watching from the sidelines.

"It was a nerve-wracking game. I don't know, it was quite tough. I can't believe we scored the only goal of the game; we gifted our opponents three points. We had an opportunity to equalise, and our penalty taker didn't really do the best in scoring the game."

Further stating, "I think the boys were just not themselves today. But we are going to go back and try to prepare them better for the next matches. Yeah, but it was a good game, though." -slunyangwe@nepc.com.na

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