ON THE RISE! VARSITY SPORTS SUCCESS FOR UWC WOMEN’S FOOTBALL

BY JOSHUA HENDRICKS

UWC WOMEN’S FOOTBALL is on the rise. A strong, resilient team has emerged from participating in the Varsity Football Cup, as can be seen in the team’s improvement from sixth to third position on the HollywoodBets Super League table and victory in the Varsity Cup in 2021 after four consecutive years as losing finalists. The team beat Tuks 4–3 on penalties on Tuks’s home ground.

COACH THINASONKE MBULI says, “We started the season very well. What worked for us was that the majority of the players that were playing in Varsity Football were playing in the national league too. We didn’t have two different teams but used the same players. Those HollywoodBets games acted as preparation in the build-up to the Varsity Cup.”

However, playing back-to-back games in three different competitions can take its toll on the body and injuries were one of their biggest challenges. The coach says huge credit is due to the medical team who ensured that the players were in peak condition leading up to the final.

DESCRIBING THE STRATEGY adopted for the HollywoodBets Super League campaign, Mbuli says: “We sat down as a team and set our own goals. One of those goals was to do better than last season and another was to win the Varsity Football Cup. We tried so many times. We had the motivation and it pushed us to improve our position. The moment we won’t forget was when we were welcomed by Prof Pretorius, Prof Dube, Mr Gagayi and the UWC students at the airport. That was something that had never happened. It was a good morale booster after winning the Varsity Football Cup.”

The players now know the winning feeling and we simply have to defend our title."

- THINASONKE MBULI

Mbuli says being the first team outside Gauteng to take the Cup is something the university and the team are proud of, along with their improvement in the league. Now the challenge is to maintain the momentum.

“If we win it once it will be seen as a fluke, so we want to do it again. The players now know the winning feeling and we simply have to defend our title. The standard has been set and we now have the experience and hunger to do it.”

As an assistant coach at Banyana Banyana, Mbuli says coaching the national team and the club are not the same but she gets the benefi t of international experience and working with players from different provinces or clubs.

CAPTAIN AMO MOTAU has an unusual take on leadership. She says, “I view leadership as servanthood. I use it as a chance to serve my teammates in small moments and big moments on and off the fi eld. It’s a great asset to me because I can make my teammates also believe that they are leaders within themselves. If we all step up on the fi eld and there is no particular captain, everyone feels that when the team needs them they need to show up and they do that.”

She says her most memorable moment of the Varsity Cup final was the sound of the whistle ending normal time and signalling that the outcome would be settled by penalties. Although they had not won it yet, the players were all on the same page and confident of grabbing the trophy. Motau admits she struggles to balance being a student and a footballer.

“I’ve never found a balance. I’ve been doing this since high school. I was at a sports school and played for the junior national team while at high school. We travel a lot so we have our laptops out on the road, trying to catch up. Sometimes school struggles while we are at the Varsity Cup or sometimes you need to neglect football so that you can focus on your studies. You just need to do what is needed and grind through so you can get the results that you want,” says Motau.

TEAMMATE SIBULELE MSAWAWA HOLWENI, who was made Player of the Year at UWC, is ecstatic about winning this prestigious award.

Holweni says, “First, I would like to thank my teammates and our technical team. Their support made it possible for me to win this award. It was a wonderful feeling. I still smile when I think about that moment. But this is also a motivation for me and my teammates that there’s always room for improvement.”

Like most of our female footballers, Holweni hopes to play abroad, dreams of competing at the Olympics and the World Cup and also hopes to contribute towards the upliftment of the community. B+G