Extension Gunners will decide the league title

By Pulane Kelapile



Extension Gunners Football Club


We are approaching the end of the season and Extension Gunners had mixed fortunes throughout the 2013-14 marathon campaign.  

At one point they found themselves dangerously languishing at the relegation zone and soccer pundits were already writing their obituary. They were about to make history by relegating to the Debswana First Division South for the first time ever. The Peleng Giants seem to have found their fortunes as evidenced by the recent good results.

Gunners has a mammoth task of having to face the Top 4 Sides who are challenging for the title namely, BDF XI, Mochudi Centre Chiefs, Gaborone United and Township Rollers. Against all odds, Mapantsola as they are affectionately called by their legion of fans started their journey well after downing the Army boys by 2 goals to 1 recently. All eyes were on BDF XI to see how they would fare against Gunners who have been blowing hot and cold throughout the season.

The win meant a lot to Rollers and Mochudi Centre Chiefs with the latter thrashing relegation lurker Tafic 4-2. Rollers on the other side managed to salvage a point from BMC after a tough encounter.  The draw left Popa still patched at the Top with 54 Points and while Magosi were lagging behind with a point.

This coming weekend Extension Gunners are yet to face another tough task ahead of them against defending Champions at the National Stadium on Saturday. Though a game between the 2 giants never disappoints in terms of good attendance and display in the field of play, this time around the special ingredient will be the Coaches from both camps who happen to face their former employers for the first time.

The Serbian Dragojlo Stanajolovic now in Gunners colours will get a chance to prove his worth after he was unceremoniously relieved his duties by Chiefs management due to poor results among others. Mike Sithole also left Gunners for Chiefs therefore many unsolved issues which will be at stake this coming weekend.

After the weekend fixture Extension Gunners will face Gaborone United who are currently sitting on the fourth place in the league.  Gaborone United have defeated Gunners in the past 3 Premier League encounters by 1-0, 2-1 and 2-1 respectively and they will be looking to continue their dominance and inline closing the gap between at the top.  

However, Gunners will never give in that easily because they also want to finish in the Top 8 bracket. Extension Gunners duo of Tshepo Molefe and Kelello Kgosimore will work hard to show their former employers it was premature to deem them surplus to requirements.

Lastly on the tough Gunners radar will come Gaborone West based Township Rollers. No doubt fireworks are going to be massive on this one. Definitely Rollers are going to come with all knifes blazing up for revenge after that 1-0 loss during the first game of the season. Gunners have beaten Mapalastina 3 times in a row having eliminated them from last year’s Kabelano Charity Cup.

 Mapantsola won the second round game for the 2012-13 season which was played at the UB Stadium during the Easter Holidays. To top in all, this year’s encounter will be played again during the Easter Holidays. Win or lose,  Gunners will shape to of the log come the end of season.  

 

EXTENSION GUNNERS  PREMIER LEAGUE ENCOUTERS AGAINST TOP 4 TEAMS

BDF XI:

-          29-03-2014: Extension Gunners   2-1       BDF XI

-          17-09-2013: BDF XI        1-0       Extension Gunners

-          10-04-2013: BDF XI        2-0       Extension Gunners

-          23-09-2012: Extension Gunners   2-2       BDF XI

   MOCHUDI CENTRE CHIEFS:

-          05-04-2014: Mochudi  Centre Chiefs       VS       Extension Gunners

-          16-10-2013: Extension Gunners  0 -3  Mochudi Centre Chiefs

-          12-05-2013: Extension Gunners   1-1       Mochudi Centre Chiefs

-          26-09-2012: Mochudi Centre Chiefs        3 - 2     Extension Gunners

 

GABORONE UNITED:

-          12-04-2014: Extension Gunners   VS       Gaborone United

-          14-12-2013: Gaborone United      2 -1      Extension Gunners

-          01-04-2013: Gaborone United      2-1       Extension Gunners

-          03-11-2012: Extension Gunners   0-1       Gaborone United

 

TOWNSHIP ROLLERS:

-          20-04-2014: Extension Gunners   VS       Township Rollers

-          13-09-2013: Township Rollers      0 -1      Extension Gunners

-          30-03-2013: Township Rollers      0-2       Extension Gunners

-          24-11-2012            PRL     Extension Gunners      1-5       Township Rollers

Training without the ball is not beneficial

Players running in small groups during a training session.
Photo courtesy of extremesoccerloverx.blogspot.com

By Samuel Morewabone

“Playing the ball exclusively is the best way for soccer players to build fitness.” That was said by Sports photographer and editorialist, Axel Heiken. As true as the afore mentioned expression is, some of our local tacticians consider spending too much time running without the ball, all in the name of “fitness.”

Players, particularly amateurs should practice purely with the ball. Studies and surveys points out that footballers run 4-7miles (contingent on position) during the 90 minutes of a football match. They are subjected to abbreviated but critical and intense periods of hard work at atypical intervals complete rest periods.

Players go through toilsome training sessions week in and week out. In most cases, physical trainers are amply won over by the cliché that if they are physically prime than their next opponents, then they will get the better of them with ease and minimal repose. Physical fitness has more than its due credit that some coaches have the assumption that other prospects like mental fitness and tactics of the game of football are utterly standard and thus physical fitness is crème de la crème.

This has gone to a degree where by all on-field troubles are blamed on lack of “fitness”. In addition a lot of this collateral running would probably be of paramount use if they were orthogonal to the game of football itself.

It is boring that our local players in the premier league spend most of their time at their teams, doing something similar to fartlek training and can’t even string 4-5 passes in between themselves, to say the least!

However, endurance is still a vitally important virtue in a football player. In training sessions, it will actually make a wholly sense and logic for Michael Kopt’s notorious “Intermittent endurance training” to reproduce the types of exertion found in literal and actual match play. It can also be seen as a varieties of definitive interval training methods where players do acute and intensive sprints until the game ends, giving the players longer breaks.

In the long run, players must be vulnerable to short periods of exertion that may be maximal or submaximal. However, these should always be soccer-specific, interrupted by brief, irregular rest periods because the higher the ability level, the shorter the breaks.

Intermittent endurance training is somehow similar to fartlek training in the demands it places on the heart and circulatory system. It also allows training of technical/tactical concepts simultaneously. KP