XI Experience chairman Veli Nkosi has revealed that his side has a plan to challenge for the Ekurhuleni SAB League title next season – which unfortunately involves blooding a number of young and inexperienced players into the team this season, so they can get as much experience in the fourth-tier league as possible, before they can realistically challenge for league honours next season.
Like all other football leagues in the country, the SAB League’s 2019/2020 season was brought to a temporary halt as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, with the Kwa-Thema-based club having done relatively well after their first 22 matches – having won 12 of them and sitting just 12 points behind log leading Highlands Park, who have played a game more, in fifth position.
Nkosi says they were not concerned so much about closing the gap on the log leaders in this campaign, but rather to offer their young players a feel of the level of the league’s competitiveness.
“The lockdown has hurt us a lot because we were just preparing a team of young boys, which is team that we had wished would be strong, so it could be able to compete in the next season. Our entire plan just failed, because we wanted to groom these boys, to introduce them into the league we’re playing in (so) they could know what’s required next season instead of them still needing coaching.”
Nkosi also admits that it was a setback for them to lose a number of the more experienced players after last season’s relegation from the Gauteng ABC Motsepe League, notwithstanding the fact that they were able to retain a small portion of the team that competed in the third-tier in the 2018/2019 campaign.
“(Losing those players has hurt us) a lot. As I say, we were planning to go for the league next season. So they (the new players) were supposed to get used to the league, because if you look at the team, we have a very young goalkeeper – 17 years old – and both of them are very young. So they are the players who were supposed to get a lot of game time, show their mistakes and improve from them. That’s because we didn’t aim to win but had the aim to say ‘let’s play – boys, improve in your respective positions’, that’s what we wanted this season.”
Although unlikely, the SAB League season may still continue, though, as the country’s football governing body, SA Football Association (SAFA) and the Premier Soccer League’s (PSL) joint liaison committee is expected to submit its recommendations on the safe return of football competitions to the government on Thursday.
The two parties had formed a task team to draw up these recommendations in their executive meeting two Thursdays ago, and depending on the government’s response, the different leagues might still be able to conclude their seasons, although it’s very likely that it will be behind closed doors, if at all possible.
The idea of playing behind closed doors is not expected to make a significant difference to teams in the SAFA structures leagues, though, as crowds in their games are usually not very large.
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