Hard Work paid off - Masango
Hard Work paid off - Masango

Posted in News on Jun 19, 2011.

Kaizer Chiefs midfielder Mandla Masango was on target for the South African U-23 team during their 5-1 victory over their Benin in a 2012 Olympic Qualifying game, at the Rand Stadium in Johannesburg on Sunday afternoon.

The U23 overturned a 3-1 first leg deficit to advance 6 – 4 on aggregate to the next stage of qualifying.



Masango put Amaglug-Glug’s victory down to effective planning and determination as he explained saying, “we worked very hard all week long in preparation for the game.

We discussed our strategy over and over, we came with a game plan implemented it and made it work.



There was a lot of talk that we were missing a number of players and how would we cope? I said before and this performance shows that there we have a lot of depth in the national U-23 set up.”



Masango scored the third goal on 38 minutes which was his second in qualifying as he was on target against Libya in the previous round, and of once again finding the net he said.



“We needed to score goals and we wasted no time in doing so, we put ourselves in command early on and we wrapped things up by halftime because we were leading 4-0. Scoring again really pleases me simply because I am happy to contribute towards helping the country reach the Olympic games.”

Qualifying for the 2012 London Olympic Games for African Countries moves into a round robin stage with eight teams divided into two groups of four, with the top two teams in each group as well as the best second placed team qualifying for the games.



While the next best placed team will face an Asian Nation in a two legged play off, according to Masango the hard work begins now for Amaglug Glug “we were tested against Benin.



We came out of that examination with a good mark; we managed to overturn a two goal deficit which took a lot of effort. We now have six more games to fulfil our Olympic ambitions.

Some of the best teams on the continent the likes of Egypt, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Morocco and Algeria are in the final phase it won’t be easy but we will be ready.”

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