Over all, Italy were consistent in all their games and can be proud not to have conceded a goal from an opposition player in open play, as the only goals that went against them were in the form of an own goal and a penalty kick in the final.

It is really amazing to see how Marcello Lippi turned a team who had come off a bad tournament in Euro 2004 and converted them into World Champions; this has been a really amazing transformation. If one has to look back at when Marcello Lippi’s first began as the Italian national team coach, he had a real baptism of fire.

In his very first game in charge Italy lost to Iceland in a friendly game in October 2004 and back then there were calls for him to be sacked as the national team coach, nevertheless in true Lippi fashion he laboured on. He took a group of players who had never really, until this world cup, played to their potential, after the disappointment of Korea and Japan in 2002 and then Euro 2004.

The wise old man got the likes of Francesco Totti, Alessandro Nesta, Alessandro Del Piero, Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso and most importantly Fabio Cannavaro to transfer their club form to the national team.

He made some intelligent additions to his squad adding Luca Toni who at the time of his debut was with Palermo and Alberto Gilardino who came into the national team while impressing the doubters after finding goals with Parma. He was very shrewd in his team selection and must take a lot of the credit for really helping a soccer Phoenix rise from the ashes.

As the dust begins to settle on the FIFA World Cup clubs from around the world begin to get their pre season programmes under way and this was also the case for us, as we took part and returned home victorious from Polokwane with the Limpopo Soccer Challenge trophy.

Many of my fellow PSL colleagues have said in the papers that they are happy with their teams and could not ask for anything different.

At the moment I do not think that I can say that I am happy. We began training two weeks ago and we are far from where we should be, in terms of sharpness in front of goal and other things like fitness and carrying out tactical instructions.

We won two games on the weekend and we could not have asked for more. For me, our performances were far from what we would expect looking at the kind of squad that we have.

One could probably excuse the guys as the performances on Saturday were vindictive of a team who had come off a month long break. In our next match there will be no time for excuses.

As the pre season progresses we need to get better game-by-game and with Manchester United up next we will be increasing our tempo on the training ground to prepare ourselves for them.

These are the kind of teams that we need to get a good result against in order for us to build up our confidence as well as believe in our abilities as a team.

Having said that I must admit that the initial prognosis for us is looking good although Manchester United will provide a more accurate test of our overall strength of our team and progress.

Siyabonga Nkosi showed some touches of genius - he got into the correct positions and carried out the instructions that were asked of him.

Shaun Bartlett gave us a preview into his capabilities. We had some of our other players from last season the likes of David Mathebula, Gerald Sibeko and Siphiwe Mkhonza putting up a real fight as they demonstrated their abilities and keenness to get some game time.

We have started off by moving in the right direction we cannot get overly excited at this stage. We will tread with optimism and caution towards the start of the new PSL season in August - at this stage of the game we are busy ironing out the chinks in our armoury.

Our travels to Polokwane was without our Captain Cyril Nzama who was not 100% ready to play so we decided to leave him to get extra rest - he did resume full training on Monday Morning. Rowen Fernandez deputized for him as captain and with good effect it must be said as he lead from the back and helped get the team around which helped get us the trophy.

Gert Schalkwyk did not train on Monday as he was nursing some bruises and knocks he picked up on the weekend we are expecting him in training on Thursday. When we get to our Vodacom Challenge base outside Gert should be able to participate in our first full session there, which is scheduled for some time on Thursday afternoon.

Till next week be well and come to Cape Town if circumstances allow as we would like to give Manchester United a hearty South African Welcome when we face them head on next Tuesday at Newlands in Cape Town.