Manzini hails School of Excellence development prowess

Speaking to SABC Sport after the Sundowns aligned Clapham retained the Kay Motsepe Schools Championship title with a 2-1 win over the School of Excellence Magaliesburg on Saturday. The two schools also contested the provincial final, which was won by Clapham, but Manzini cannot stop raving about their rivals. 

"I think obviously they wanted to compete and test their strengths against better opposition," Manzini said.

"They fought and worked hard for every little ball. That's what we've been crying for in terms of competition in this tournament. So, that it doesn't become an obvious thing that teams from Gauteng will take it back home, " he added. 

It was that kind of situation and obviously, the School of Excellence if we are being honest played some good football. One of the most highly disciplined units in this tournament", Manzini claimed. 

A day before this game, one of the finest finds of School of Excellence from Mpumalanga Siyabonga Mabena led Amajimbos to the African Cup for Nations U17 qualification in Malawi during the Zone 5 Youth Games.  Mabena has since been signed by Sundowns, and Manzini says the school has done a lot for the country.

"With the School of Excellence, you know when it comes to technique, there's a lot of emphasis on that one. They're highly technical and you can see that brings the confidence part and the confidence part brings the arrogance part which you need at a higher level as you compete. Because you can do it, you know you can do it.

You can do anything you want to do with the ball, you can manipulate it whichever way you want to and that's what the School of Excellence players bring into this, the same level that they take to junior national teams,"

The likes of Percy Tau, the late Motjeka Madishaa, Siphelele Mkhulise, and Promise Mkhhuma from Sundowns have been products of this relationship between the club and Clapham. Manzini, a former Sundowns captain, says the relationship has helped the club.

"It's been a good journey throughout. You see, they always offer a different kind of challenge with school football. Our responsibility is to help bring back those good old days. Where players were recruited from schools and obviously it has to be attractive for more people to be involved," he said.

"This is our responsibility and obviously you grow within that and say my responsibility is to serve the people, my responsibility is to develop and take football out there. That point of view has helped me grow a lot. So, it's not club football only.

They're children, they're young men that we need to groom because we don't want to just extract out of them that quality in football and then raise or develop great footballers. We want to develop great human beings as well, take back to society a man when you've taken from society a boy. It's part of our responsibility," he concluded.