adminjunior soccer tournament kicks-off.
The tournament has drawn 12 teams from the Highglen District League and they will play the tournament in a round-robin format.
Derbyshire, Arsenal, Youth Connect, Waterfalls, FC Dutch, Fall Academy, Easa Juniors, Stefans, All Stars, Super Strikers, Lisbon, Startreck are all expected to take part in this tournament.
The Johane Masowe Gwanzura Sect organising secretary, David Chikobvu, is hopeful the tournament will be a success and they are looking forward to a good event.
“This year, we expect a bigger and better-organised tournament. This is our fifth-year running the tournament and we have learnt a lot from our past experience and we are looking forward to have a very successful tournament.
“The tournament is aimed at developing football from grassroots levels and identifying future stars from our district.
“It is our aim to create a conducive place for young people to socialise and we saw that soccer, with its great following, is ideal.
“The tournament is not limited to the apostolic sect denomination alone as we are bringing together teams from the district and they are made up of young people who are mostly of school-going age.”
Chikobvu has great expectations that the tournament will be competitive considering the prizes on offer this year.
“We are hopeful that there is going to be strong competition among the teams this year considering the prizes on offer. This year the prizes include soccer jerseys, soccer balls, medals and some trophies for the winners.
“The other thing of interest is that last year the tournament was for the Under-14s but this year it is the Under-16 age-group which is taking part.
“We have decided to increase the age-group to Under-16 as our players are growing up and we want to see them go through to the highest level,” Chikobvu said.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe U-20 coach Taurai Mangwiro believes the country has abundant young football talent and corporate organisations should step in to help develop the sport at grassroots level
Mangwiro, who is also the coach of former PSL champions Monomotapa, said this on the sidelines of the the Startrack Freight Under-20 Soccer Cup at Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield on Sunday.
“There is abundance of raw talent here, I’m impressed what is needed now is for corporate sponsors to come on board,” he said.
He called on ZIFA to help in the standardization and regulation of all academies in Zimbabwe.
He said if youth football programmes were run professionally and smoothly, there was a wider pool from which to draw players for the national junior teams which, in turn, will strengthen these teams an allow them
to compete favourably in regional and global competitions.
On the field, the hosts Startrack Academy brushed aside the stiff challenge from CAPS United, DC Academy and BN Academy to scoop the trophy. The winners got a kit, trophy & gold medals with the runners up getting a kit, silver medals & footballs.
BN Academy’s Blessed Masvova won the goalkeeper of the tournament award and received a full set of kit and a trophy.
Gilbert Macheka of Startrack was the player of the tournament and he got boots and a shield.
Rickson Zenda, representing the sponsors, said the tournament was just the beginning of the company’s involvement in youth football and promised greater things to come .
Online Reporter
Londile Moyo