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Sports Reporter
ALL is set for the Southern Region Africa Day five-a-side soccer tournament which will be played on Monday at the Grassroots Soccer Football for Hope Centre in Gwabalanda, Bulawayo. This is the second competition of the season to be held in the City of Kings after the May Day tournament which was won by Nust.
Philani Banda, the five-a-side Southern Region chairman, said 12 clubs would battle it out in the local competition which happens to be the final dress rehearsal for their league.
“Twelve teams have been put into two groups and we are happy that we managed to get more clubs participating in this competition. In our last event we had eight teams and getting such a number gives us hope that we are on the right track as far as starting the season is concerned.
“This tournament is meant to see whether clubs are prepared to play league matches and soon after this competition we will start our league matches. The top four teams from our region will at the end of the season take on their Northern Region counterparts in a top eight competition whose winner will be declared national champions,” Banda said.
Pool A has Nust, Khalanyoni, Far East Bombers, St Andrews, Amabhubesi and Ampha with Fox, Munyoro United, FML, Family of God Stars, Binga United as well as ALCC battling it out in Pool B.
The top two teams from each group will square off in the semi-finals.
Banda said they are not looking back as they are keen to revive the sport which was last active in 2012 when the Zimbabwe national five-a-side team bowed out of the Futsal World Cup qualifiers following their 5-3 aggregate loss to South Africa.
After the World Cup qualifiers, hopes were high that the sport, which seemed to have attracted many, would see domestic matches getting underway.
Most of the players that represented Zimbabwe at the Futsal World Cup qualifiers were drawn from Bulawayo and Harare who had running leagues last year.
“There is a potential of this sport growing bigger in Bulawayo and we want to see almost every suburb having its own team. Even institutions like colleges, churches and companies are free to register their teams with us so that we have a fun but competitive league whereby we play games week in, week out,” said Banda.
Pool A: Nust, Khalanyoni, Far East Bombers, St Andrews, Amabhubesi, Ampha
Group B: FML, Fox, Munyoro United, Fog Stars, Binga United, ALCC
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