Ikekeletso Technical High School from John Taolo Gaetsewe region were crowned champions of the Northern Cape leg of COPA Coca-Cola Play Offs for 2018.
Hosted on Saturday( 21/07) at the Robert Gunda Stadium in Upington the young champions were witnessed edging Steynville High School 5-3 on penalties following an evenly balanced 1-1 scoreline after full time.
Even after getting off to a rather challenging start with a 1-1 draw in their opening fixture against Kimberley Technical School, the newly crowned Northern Cape champions impressed by their spirit of clearly showing character in their next fixture.
They possess an impressive 2-1 victory over Carlton Van Heerden towards finishing top of their group and secure a place in the finals.
In the other group matches, Steynville High School also had to show character against a resilient Hoerskool Aggeneys.
As the only two teams in the group, the two schools faced each other twice where Steynville emerged 1-0 winners in both encounters to qualify for the final in what was a fun filled day of school’s football in Upington.
As an addition to this year’s COPA Coca-Cola tournament, Coca-Cola launched its COPA Coca-Cola Future Stars search which will see selected players being hand-picked by COPA Coca-Cola Ambassador, Jabu “Shuffle” Mahlangu alongside a team of talent scouts for a unique training camp to be held at the High-Performance Centre in Pretoria later this year.
Mahlangu pointed out that a school’s football development initiative such as the COPA Coca-Cola tournament is exactly what South African football needs to move forwar.
“This is demonstrated in how the tournament has produced a number of quality footballers that I remember playing against in my career.
“We saw amazing talent in the last two provinces and we are looking forward to witnessing more school’s football talent through the COPA Coca-Cola U15 tournament” said Mahlangu.