Posted in News on Jun 17, 2011.
Trailing 3-1 from the first leg in Cotonou Masango believes that if Shakes Mashaba’s team adopt the same strategy that the Students who rose up did in Soweto in June 1976 they will manage to win the game.
“June 16 1976 is a significant day in the history of our country and as a team we can learn so much from that day and those who sacrificed everything they had so that today we can represent a United South Africa, explained Masango.”
He went on to further add, “We might be playing a football game but we can learn that faced when faced with any adversity if you get together it can be overcome with team work and will power. That spirit of getting together as a collective and getting past a stumbling block is what we need to duplicate against Benin on Sunday.”
In the first leg a number of refereeing decisions went against Amaglug-glug according to Masango they will not let what happened a fortnight ago affect them going into this game.
“Let’s leave what happened in Cotonou behind us, this game is on our turf we know the Rand Stadium well all of us have played there at some time in our career. We have our fans to back us so it is up to us to let all of this mean something and get the result we need.”
Although the South Africa U-23 team head into the game minus some key personnel Masango is confident that they have the tools to win and progress to the next round, “we might be without Thulani Serero, Andile Jali and Eric Matoho the guys who are here are capable of ensuring that we win the game.
“Nobody needs to tell u as the saying goes we know that this is the game of our life, in our careers this is the only chance that we will have to play in Olympics. Beating Benin will mean the world and more to us.”
