Castle SuperStars players join Bafana training
JOBURG - Five Castle Lager Football Academy graduates have been selected to train with Bafana Bafana squad to face Nigeria in an international friendly match on 29 March.
Five Castle Lager Football Academy graduates have been selected to train with Bafana Bafana squad to face Nigeria in an international friendly match on 29 March.
The game will be played at the Mbombela Stadium in Mbombela, formerly Nelspruit. Bafana coach Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba extended an invitation to the five Castle SuperStars graduates to train with the team.
They are the most promising stars of the future Bafana players and will be given an opportunity to train with the senior national team from 23 March. Among them will be striker of the North West University’s Vaal Campus football team, Sifiso Nkosi.
Nkosi’s skills shone when he engineered his team’s unexpected victory against a high riding Alexandra United football team in a recent ABC Motsepe League match at the Balfour Park Stadium.
Nkosi was initially played as a defender as the team’s strategy was to absorb all the pressure from the home and ensure they do not concede much in the first half, so they can go all out to attack in the second with a view they could win the match, and this strategy paid out handsome dividends.
After suffocating United’s strike force, Nkosi was then brought to attack in the second half and he mesmerised the United defence as well by winning most of the headers inside the box, creating a chance for his fellow striker to level the score at 1-1, before finishing off with a late winner.
He will be joined at Bafana camp by fellow graduates of the SuperStars, Bafana Dlamini, Tshepo Mokhabi, Deolin Mekoa, who currently plays for Maritzburg United, and Rafiq de Goede currently with NFD side, Vasco da Gama.
The news of the invitation to the five thrilled SAB sponsorship manager, Errol Madlala, who said it vindicates the good work the academy was doing in unearthing and developing players, not just for their clubs, but for future Bafana Bafana material as well.
Other graduates of the academy, Thabang Mothogwane and Sabelo Mtshali, have both been snatched by Baroka FC, a team that boasts the fame of having beaten Kaizer Chiefs in the Nedbank Cup Tournament some years back.
