Coach Leal’s feelings on the progress and perfomance of the team

Added: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 (08:06)

When we started the preparation for this Season, after a break for holidays, the evaluation made at the Pretoria Center of Excellence was poor under the “physical” point of view, and the Squad was not complete in numbers or quality, and not good enough in quality comparing to others.

The structure of the Club was improved, the staff compliment more complete and very committed. The Squad was re-enforced every week, and gave of themselves above the limit, allowing a really big improvement.

The pre-season preparation was very good with the Players enjoying the practices, and the new way of Physical Preparation with Japhet Borges. They expressed themselves well both on and off the field, performing at their best.

The Team played match trainings and friendly matches, experimenting with the new formations, alternative formations, and the different Systems and Tactics, performing better each time. We started playing in Tournaments such as Old Mutual and MTN Top 8, against strong opposition and even so delivered good performances and some good results.

Above all the style of playing, ball possession, game of passes, the attempt to play the “JOGO BONITO”, the beautiful football, as THE BEAUTIFUL BIRDS deserve and the Swallows Supporters love, was more and more strongly demonstrated. It takes time to reach the superior level we are aiming for, but the Team did good preparation and solid hard work.

Next season the idea is to go abroad, to Football Countries with strong football, like Germany, Italy, Spain, Argentina, and Brazil, to get the maximum benefit out of this important period, the foundation of the Team.

Unfortunately, having had no injuries all the period through, in the last game before the season started, we picked up two problems with the half backs, very important in our System: Vincent Kobola sustained a knee injury against Kaiser Chiefs and James Mayinga developed an abscess, demanding that he stop play for 3 weeks.

The Team drew at home for the first game against Bay United, playing well in the second half. We then lost to Ajax, also at home. Having conceded 2 goals in the beginning, their 3rd goal, still in the first half, came when our performance was offensive and good. Even after the fourth goal we kept fighting and got 2 goals in to finish 2 x 4.

Then Sandile got injured and a new attack started against Santos, last year’s runners up, coming from winning Bay by 3 x 0. But our team played well, we scored a goal within 18 seconds and kept playing well up to the final result 3 x 0. We have a lot still to improve, but the foundation is there. Under the new scientific preparation, and with time, better performances and results will come.

The performances of the Team helped Lefa, the Team Captain, to be selected by the National Team several times; Shakka and Quinton were selected for the Development and B Team, and other Players will follow the same way. Don’t follow me, follow the Birds!

Kind regards, Julio