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Fungai Muderere
SOUTH Africa-based juniors coach Fortune “Fokoza” Ncube has hailed the two weeks long international junior football coaching experience that saw his charges go down in the quarter-final stages of the Iber Cup in Portugal.
Teams that took part at the event came from South Africa, Portugal, France, Brazil, United States, Australia, Turkey and Spain.
Ncube, a former Motor Action and Bantu Rovers forward, took charge of Johannesburg-based Sporting CP Portugal Academy Under 11 side.
“I was happy to engage with other grassroots coaches and picking up knowledge from them. From each and every match I learnt a lot. For example, from our first game which we lost 4-0 to Balenenses of Portugal, I saw the need for doing proper warm-up before a particular match. We arrived at the match venue seven minutes before kick-off and my boys did not do enough warm-up hence our loss,” said Ncube.
For their second of the tournament, Ncube’s charges beat US Lustianos Sma of France 3-2 before they went on to wallop Spain’s CD Elpalo 3-0 in their next the match of the contest.
Thereafter, the ex-Bantu Rovers player watched his youngsters prevail over Portugal’s UD Alta Be Lisaboa on a 3-2 score line.
In their last group match, Sporting CP Portugal Academy continued with their winning ways that saw them edge another South Africa-based side Rand Central 1-0 to book a quarter-final berth against Marbella of Spain.
“We learnt from the mistake that we did before our first game and as a result we progressed to the quarter-final stage of the tournament where we lost 3-1 to a more organised Marbella. I realised that our opponents had a more professional approach to the game.
“While they had a full technical team of a head coach, assistant coach, goalkeepers coach, team manager and fitness trainer, from our technical bench I was alone. It all made life difficult for me but it was a trip that widened my knowledge on grassroots coaching,” said Ncube.
He added: “I got a valuable chance to exchange notes with junior football coaches from different parts of the world. I believe in Africa that is where we need to improve our game as we have not been giving junior football the importance it deserves and maybe we have been going about it the wrong way. I will always relish the opportunity of interacting with coaches from our mother club, Sporting Lisbon as I got a grasp of how junior football training is organised.”
Ncube, who also turned out for Hwange and the now defunct Black Mambas, started his coaching career at Christian Saints in Harare in 2012 before moving to Beitbridge where he joined ZRP and was then recruited by Luke Masomere at Border Strikers as the second assistant coach then.
He joined Arenel in 2017 before joining Sporting CP Portugal Academy.
Online Reporter