Tembo polishing his diamonds

Kaitano Tembo has been having a stressful time this season where his youngsters are concerned.

The SuperSport United mentor cannot please all of his players and the younger ones are the most frustrated, as they have been getting minimal game time in the senior team.

One player who has been showing potential is Gape Moralo, who was promoted at the start of the season but has seen more game time in the DStv Diski Challenge (DDC) team – he would have loved more minutes in the top flight.

“We have a lot of players in his position and we always send these players to the DDC team whenever there is an opportunity so that they can get some game time. Gape is working hard and we are well aware of that. His opportunity will come,” said Tembo.

“At the same time you look at the effort that has been put in by these youngsters, there is a lot of positives and I am quite happy. There are still a lot of things that we need to work on, but it will come with time. At the moment they just need to play and that is when they will get better,” he added.

The Matsatsatsantsa A Pitori mentor usually describes his youthful players as rough diamonds. One such player which he has been working hard to polish this season is versatile defender Kegan Johannes, who had a match to forget against Orlando Pirates where he conceded two penalties.

“He is actually a centre-back and he can still play at rightback and on the left. He is someone who enjoys defending and like every player, he makes mistakes and we have something to work on. There is a great future ahead of him, he is a great player,” Tembo said, as he plans to work on his young players during this Fifa break.

“We don’t have a huge squad but we are happy with what we have. We’ll just have to manage them a little bit better.”