Namibia: Dts U/17 Stun City Pillars 2-1

Deutscher Turn und Sportverein (DTS) U/17 were in form last weekend, collecting three points against City Pillars with a 2-1 win at the Jan Mohr Football Field.

As the MTC HopSol Youth League took a holiday break due to the school holidays, a total of 35 games were played during the week.

DTS's first goal came from a penalty kick that was committed in the first five minutes from kick-off from Tyles Efraim, while their second goal came from Gift Sandema. Ironically, City Pillars' goal also came from a penalty spot kick from Lazarus Kapolo.

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Former Tigers player Abraham Letu Shatimuene, who is now head coach of the U/17 squad said it was a good match, though it started off at a slow pace.

"We started very slowly. We had a couple of chances to take the lead in the first half. I think there were two or three chances which we didn't capitalise on. The game changed in the second half. We managed to get the opener and we scored. I think fitness also is a bit of a problem as the league just kicked off and now we are on a break," he said.

With the school holiday season officially in full swing, coach Shatimuene feels his boys' game time has not been enough to get them up to standard.

"I think fitness is still playing a big role, and that's why we could see some phases in the game where players were a bit tired and losing concentration and so on. But overall, we are very pleased with the performance of the boys and pleased to get the three points here," he said.

"We are not going on holiday we are working throughout the holiday. We are training. I think we will just give them a week's break, then relax and rest a bit. But further on, we are training.We are not having any holidays. As I said, we want to do well in this league this season, so, I don't see us taking any holiday," he ended.

Coach Neville Giengob from City Pillars has been struggling to get his players in tune during practice sessions, as they have been preoccupied with exams.

"They were out of muscle because, the steam went out. I don't know. I need to give them a week off, then after the week off, start with a bit of fitness work to help them get back to that level. Because they were in the examination and we only had one day to train and we came, and we managed it. We also beat Baller Boys, scored a goal and held them. But with the fitness, they beat us out and go back to the drawing board, and I'll work on it," he said.

"It was, let me say 45/50 percentage ball possession for DTS. All that for them, they got experienced players. They did it, they held it and they managed to get the gap and played, through behind my defender," said Shatimuene.

He added, "I even told them when they were on the field, don't go out because they will play behind you. But they played behind them, and they scored a goal. It was a wonderful goal for the number seven of the boy of DTS who scored the goal."

The player of the match was awarded to Sergio Gamiseb from DTS, who felt his performance was not up to par with his standards.

"I wasn't happy with how the team played because normally if we play against a big, team we play well, but then we play against a low-class team our standard drops and we need to fix that," he said.

"To be honest, because we didn't warm up, and normally we don't do that. And just because we were River City Pillars, my teammates just thought, 'Oh no, it's an easy game,' so we didn't take that to heart," said Shatimuene.

He went on to say, "We need to work hard in the holidays, work more on our discipline, try to keep our fitness and all that, and yeah, we should do things in the holidays to keep us fit."

Elswehere, Riverheights Football Academy U/17managed to always come back when Dama Soccer Academy scored to end the match 5-3 in their favour.

Coach Richard Chari from Riverheights was delighted that Dama SA has now started playing competitive football, which has made it difficult to play against them.

"I want to say I'm happy with the boys. This is our third game. First game we drew with AC, a big team. In the second game we drew with DTS, a big team.

I'm also proud of Dama and the way they're playing now. They're now playing good football. In the first half we didn't play to our usual selves, because we were undermining Dama. Then in the second half we started playing the way we always play, pressing high and passing the ball around. That's when we managed to win five-three," he ended. -slunyangwe@nepc.com.na

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