Action in the MTC Namibia Premier League (NPL) will take a short break as the Bidvest Namibia Cup quarterfinals will be taking place tomorrow at the Sam Nujoma Stadium in Windhoek .
All teams in this competition are hungry to reach the final and eventually win this competition, so the action is expected to be quite entertaining.
The action will start at 15:00 when United Stars will take on coach Bobby Samaria’s Tigers.
United Stars – under the tutelage of Dawid Snewe - reached the quarter-finals after defeating their fellow NPL side Blue Boys 3-1, while Tigers beat Blue Waters 2-1.
Thereafter, it will be the chance of the defending cup champions, African Stars, to show what they have as they will tussle with Karas Second Division side Mountain Rangers at 17:00.
Both sides will be hoping to continue in their good run as Stars did enough to beat Ali Akan’s Orlando Pirates 1-0 while Mountain Rangers disappointed NPL side Rundu Chiefs on penalties after a 2-2 draw.
The last match, which is expected to be the icing on the cake of a good football day, pits the NPL leaders Black Africa against the hard-running Tura Magic at 19:00.
Magic, coached by Timo Tjongarero, are doing superbly in all competitions and so far are sitting on fifth spot in the NPL.
The team also won the League Cup while Bertus Bock was still in charge. They beat Tropical Heat 2-1 at Gobabis’s Legare Stadium to progress into the quarter-finals where they will now meet the ‘Lively Lions’, who demolished Blue Birds 5-1 in the previous round.
The match tickets are going for N$30 at all Computicket outlets and at Football House in Katutura.
Citizens on fire
Meanwhile, Jan Vleermuis and Lesley So-oabeb scored in the first half to see Citizens through to the semi-finals with a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Kaizen Football Academy (KFA) in the quarter-finals of the cup match that was played on Wednesday night at the Sam Nujoma Stadium.
Citizens, who recently got promoted to the NPL, came into the encounter as favourites against the giantkillers KFA, who compete in the Khomas Second Division.
But on the night, Citizens started off well and dominated the first half with their lanky striker Vleermuis scoring within 15 minutes, before So-oabeb added a second on the half hour to book their place in the semi-finals of the competition.
Citizens’ midfielder Ronald Chari won the Man of the Match award and the N$2 000 prize.
KFA’s coach James Britz, while expressing his dissatisfaction at the result, congratulated Citizens on progressing to the next round.
“We gave [them] too much respect and we conceded two goals that should not have been scored... In the second half we created a lot of chances and we should have made them count. I wanted us to go to the semi-finals too but in the end football is about one winner and tonight it was Citizens,” Britz told NFA.ORG.NA. -Additional reporting
NFA.ORG.NA