Young Bafana rise up to win
Botswana miss their chances in 2-0 defeat Blues to fork out for Sandro
THE depth of South African football got a positive airing yesterday as a rag-tag side‚ literally thrown together from available stock‚ overcame Botswana 2-0 in the Cosafa Castle Cup at the Moruleng Stadium and will get to play one more match on Friday.
Stuart Baxter made eight changes after the unimpressive showing of his team in Sunday’s quarter-final against Tanzania‚ where they were dumped out of the running for the main trophy and into the secondary plate competition.
They are now into the consolation final against either Namibia or Swaziland on Friday (kickoff 5pm)‚ also at Moruleng Stadium.
Exciting young talent like Nduduzo Sibiya‚ Thabo Cele and man of the match Lebohang Maboe showed potential as they outplayed a near full-strength Botswana side and extended to 12 matches South Africa’s unbeaten record against their near neighbours.
South Africa play Botswana again twice more in the CHAN-201 qualifiers on July 15 and 22 and yesterday’s defeat will be more of a blow to the Zebras’ psyche than anything else.
Their coach Oris Radipotsane blamed the officiating‚ perhaps missing the point of his own side’s inability to take their chances‚ particularly at set pieces.
Botswana had a real chance inside the opening 120 seconds with their first attack as they caught the home defence and exposed debutant goalkeeper Bruce Bvuma.
But the Kaizer Chiefs custodian came out to partially block the effort from Lempoye Tshireletso, although it needed Mario Booysen‚ scrambling back‚ to clear off the line.
Four minutes later Tshireletso had another chance after a defensive slip as Booysen stumbled and Bvuma found himself well out of goal but again managed to block the effort.
After seeing off the initial storm‚ the young South Africa began to play, with Sibiya initialing chances from the midfield as he saw off his early nerves and began to dictate matters.
It was a superb set of passes between Sibiya‚ Cele and Mohau Mokate that set up Riyad Norodien for a cracking strike on goal that secured the lead after 33 minutes.
As Botswana piled forward in CHELSEA are willing to pay a club record £60-million (R1-billion) to land Juventus left-back Alex Sandro after fresh talks on Monday.
The Italian club are keen to offer the defender a new contract to stay in Italy, but Chelsea are prepared to better any offer and meet the valuation placed on the 26-year-old. Chelsea are still waiting to hear whether the player will tell Juventus that he wants to move to England. Paris St-Germain are also interested.
Should Chelsea complete a £60-million deal for Sandro, then it will eclipse the £50-million they paid for Fernando Torres in 2011, although Chelsea are search of a late equaliser‚ the home side had chances on the counter and eventually Judas Moseamedi scored two minutes into stoppage time to seal a positive night for local football. — TMG aiming to break their twice this summer.
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has told the club they must re-sign Romelu Lukaku at any price – even if it means meeting Everton’s £100-million valuation. Having told Diego Costa he is not part of his plans by text message, Conte is desperate to land Lukaku and is confident the 24-year-old can live up to any price tag. Conte tried to sign Lukaku for Juve during the Belgian’s first spell at Chelsea and believes he perfectly fits into his favoured systems of play
Chelsea are in negotiations with Atletico Madrid regarding a return to Spain for Costa and are expected to step up their bid to sign Lukaku soon.
Everton have valued Lukaku at £100million, insisting they will not accept any less, but that has not scared off Conte, who has made it clear to Chelsea that he wants the player at any cost. — The Daily Telegraph transfer record