BATTLE ROYALE!

My dearest readers ... In my next life, I will seriously consider being a Sangoma. My predictions, purely based on previous results and the current form of the teams involved, have been remarkably spot on in recent times that I am seriously giving the denizens in the world of spooks a run for their money.

I am not bragging or looking for an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records as ‘Supreme soccer games predictor’ but as the dearly departed journalist Thulani ‘Mr T’ Thwala once advised me in one of our rendezvous weekends years ago, when we tried to replace our bloodstreams with the finest from the Scottish distillers, that “sometimes you need to pick up your own horn and blow it hard!.” Thank you ‘Mr T’.

Allow me to state the blindingly obvious. This column, the State-of-the-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA) here last week rightly predicted a Mbabane Highlanders versus Green Mamba Cup final of the 5th edition of the richly sponsored Ingwenyama Cup.

magnitude

This was informed by the magnitude of the stage and the current form of the four teams who contested the Last Four stage of the tournament.
As history will reflect, Mbabane Highlanders’ two fortuitous goals by the versatile Sabelo ‘Sawa’ Gamedze – the first one a deflected shot and the second one a goalkeeping howler by Ncanawe Ndlandla – were enough to see off a resisting Tambankulu Callies. Callies found themselves in a quandary of a Highlanders backlash after swearing in the media the whole week how they would castrate the ‘Black Bull’ and cause the second biggest upset of the tournament.

After sending trouble-torn Manzini Wanderers off they truly enjoyed the media spotlight and started believing their own hype. They ignored history, status and experience and paid the price.

To be honest, Highlanders did not play the best football there is but did enough to contain them, dominate the clash – even won the mini-boxing duel on the terraces – and went home the victors on the day. I will address this one later.

The second semi-final pitting Green Mamba against the Moneni Buccaneers was always going to be a feisty and tricky encounter. It indeed was especially with the Moneni Buccaneers taking an early lead through the quicksilver Under-20 starlet Njabulo Shongwe and Green Mamba reduced to ten men after Thabo Mngomezulu was sent off for a second bookable offence in the 67th minute.
Down to ten men for the remaining 23 minutes, many sides would have given up or would have found it difficult to exert themselves. But this Green Mamba side never knows when a cause is lost.

They picked themselves up with their jackboots and soldiered on. Within five minutes they had not only levelled matters but literally won the match through goals by Kethokuhle Mkhontfo and Linda Nkambule, who dispossessed trusted Pirates servant Menzi ‘Magawugawu’ Simelane, to net the winner. You could have heard a pin drop at the Moneni Pirates grand-stand.

Signed, sealed and delivered.

Green Mamba in the first major Cup final since they lost the 2016 EswatiniBank Cup final 1-2 to Mbabane Swallows and their first Ingwenyama Cup appearance. Up against last year’s losing Cup finalist Mbabane Highlanders, who would want to atone for the embarrassing 4-1 massacre they suffered at the hands of a ruthless Young Buffaloes on the memorable Sunday afternoon of March 17, 2019.

This makes this year’s Cup final special in its own right. The last Cup final meeting between the two sides was in the EswatiniBank Cup final in 2012.
Green Mamba won convincingly 3-1 but the day will be remembered of how the self-same Highlanders coach Thabo ‘Koki’ Vilakati shockingly left star player Hloniphani Ndebele on the substitute’s bench, when he had been instrumental in the Highlanders side reaching the final.

strung

It became a talking point as Highlanders were strung by the Lloyd Mutasa-coached Green Mamba as if they were Toni Braxton’s Spanish guitar on the day. Interestingly ‘Koki’ Vilakati will be on the bench again this time against the self-same Green Mamba. Perhaps, this time he is cooler, calmer and wiser. He is up against a disciplinarian in Caleb Ngwenya who will be playing his first major Cup final as a coach. Very interesting. No doubt this is a Cup final you can predict at your own peril and history will count for nothing.

The road to riches does not smell of roses like the biblical garden of Eden but it requires commitment, zeal, determination and a never-say-die spirit.  Both teams have worked hard to reach this stage but the better prepared team – on and off-the-field – on the day will take home the princely first prize cheque of E1.4 million. Losers will receive a modest E530 000. But nobody remembers runner’s up because, in life as it is in sports, you are deemed the first loser.

‘Animated final’ , screamed the Times of Eswatini headline on the back page yesterday and indeed, the country’s soccer mecca Somhlolo National Stadium will resemble a jungle when a ‘Black Bull’ is engaged in a fierce battle with a slithering green mamba. It will be a feisty, gruelling encounter not for the faint-hearted. Buckle Up, the Cup final is on ...

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