THE Copa Coca-Cola Crazy for Good With Soccer Silver Jubilee tournament reaches the provincial finals today with provinces hosting their competitions throughout the country.

Each province will hold the boys’ Under-16 and 17 and Under girls’ finals with winners in each category joining the defending champions Mzingwane High and Vainona and the hosts Sakubva High 1 in the national finals scheduled for July 12 to 14 in Mutare.

In Harare participants will converge at Churchill High while Ngezi Barracks will host teams from Mashonaland West and schools from Mashonaland Central will descend at Herman Germainer High.

Gifford High are the hosts for Bulawayo schools with Mzingwane hosting teams from Matabeleland South.

Matabeleland North schools will converge at Gloage High while Kwekwe High hosts schools from Midlands and in Mashonaland East the matches will be at Mutoko Government. Mutambara High is the host in Manicaland.

Matabeleland South stand a better chance of retaining the title as they will be fielding two teams — the defending champions Mzingwane High and the winners in today’s finals.

Matabeleland South had their games starting yesterday with the girls’ competition and they will end today with the boys finals.

Their provincial head in charge for football, Paulos Ncube, said they were looking forward to today’s competition which will decide the team that will join Mzingwane at the national finals set for Mutare.

“We are now trying to decide who goes for the (national) finals and the girls are playing today (yesterday).

“If we take two (boys) teams to Mutare we hope to do better than before. Hopefully we will proceed to the semis, we are eyeing the finals.

“I should be banking on Mzingwane because they have been there before. Most of the guys were Under-15s so the team is still intact,” said Ncube.

This year’s edition was launched early this month at Mzingwane High with the sponsors injecting US$6 500 for the winners in the boys’ category and the runners-up will walk away with US$5 500.

For the girls, the winners will pocket US$3 000 while the runners-up will get US$2 500.

Coca-Cola senior franchise brand manager, Mona Karingi, said the only difference in this year’s event is that the top four teams will compete in the quarter-finals.

“Basically we want to come up with the 10 provincial winners who will join the defending champions and the hosts.

“The only change that came through is that at the finals the top four teams qualifying from every group will go for the quarter-finals,” said Karingi.

The tournament is open to players aged between 13 and 16 and this year marks the third year that girls have participated.

The competition starts at a zonal level with the winners progressing to district level, then provincial championships culminating in the national finals.

source: The Herald