 The South African National under 23 Team won 2-1 in their practice match against Jomo Cosmos with Augustine Leonard and George Maluleke scoring the goals. The match took place on Wednesday (23 March 2011) at the Marks Park Grounds in Johannesburg.
The South African Team has been in camp since Friday, 18 March 2011 in Johannesburg preparing for their upcoming 2012 London Olympics qualifying match against Libya.
The match is scheduled to take place at the Sinaba Stadium in Daveyton on Sunday, 27 March 2011.
Kick off is at 15:00.
South Africa has played two practice matches in preparation for the match against Libya; the team first played against Botswana’s National Under 23 side and won five-nil (5-0) followed by the match against the National First Division team, Jomo Cosmos.
Head Coach Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba says he is happy with the steady progress the team is making as they draw closer to kick off time, he is also content with the practice matches as they assist him to better assess the team.
“These matches help us a lot as the technical team because we get to take a closer look at these players in a game situation, we need to know which players are ready enough when it comes to the final team,” said Mashaba.
South Africa will now face Mauritius on Thursday (24 March 2011) at the Marks Park Grounds in an effort to have team as ready ahead of the much anticipated match against Libya.
Mashaba says the team is bracing themselves for yet another tough encounter but that is what the team is looking for in these practice matches in order to build a team good enough to represent the country well.
“We expect a tough match during our encounter with the Mauritians and we are ready for the challenge, they have two very good approaches to the game; first is that they throw the ball to the front and looks to win the second ball; the second is using the wing-play and we are without a doubt ready for that type of football and by the way this is mostly what we expect from the Libyans on Sunday in Daveyton,” added the Coach. |
