The soccer team from Joburg's Bree Primary School will be in the French capital next week, representing South Africa in the Danone Nations Cup against 39 other countries.

THE under-12 soccer team from Bree Primary School in Mayfair, western Joburg, are off to participate in the Danone Nations Cup in France next week - with the blessing of Nelson Mandela.

The Danone Nations Cup, the biggest international football cup for kids, will be played from 3 to 7 September in various stadiums in Paris. In all, 40 countries take part, with more than 2,5 million players aged 10 to 12 in the trials.

Teams participating in the soccer tournament, sponsored by the international food company, Groupe Danone, are selected through national trials held all over the world.

A young footballer meets his hero

On Wednesday, 27 August, Mandela bade the excited boys farewell at the Mandela Foundation offices in Houghton. "I wish you good luck in the tournament. I hope you will do well and we will all be thinking of you," he said.

A beaming Bree Primary School principal, Dave Kalicharran, said the moment the school won the national Danone championship, the first thing it did was ask to meet Madiba so he could celebrate with the pupils.

"We thought we should share the moment with you. The boys were more excited about meeting you than about going to Paris."

For the first time, a school will represent South Africa in the international competition after the Danone Nations Cup tournament took on a new format in the country this year. It now runs in schools; previously it ran in soccer clubs. This decision was taken to align South Africa to Groupe Danone's policy, according to which the tournament pits schools against one another in most of the 40 nations that take part.

In 2007, Soweto Panthers won the national tournament, and went on to lift the Danone Nations Cup after beating a French side 3-0 in the finals.

Preliminary round
Bree Primary School's soccer team manager, Abdul Samad, said the preliminary rounds of the tournament kicked off in KwaZulu-Natal in April this year, with participating teams coming from primary schools around the country.

The round robin format produced winning teams from each province, which went on to compete in the national finals at the Klipspruit Stadium in Soweto on 31 May.

"Thirty-two schools were invited to participate in each province. KwaZulu-Natal hosted the event on 19 April, followed by Gauteng on 3 May. The final 32 teams competed in Cape Town on 17 May and the four finalists from each event then went on to compete in the Danone Nations Cup trophy in Soweto," Samad explained.

It was at this final event that Bree primary won the trophy, beating KwaZulu-Natal's Sinamuva Primary School by one goal to nil.

Samad was confident the school would bring the Danone Cup to South Africa, saying his boys were raring to go. "The school has employed a full-time coach for the team for the tournament."

Nhlonipho Ntuli, a Grade 7 pupil at the school, wears jersey number seven. Barely able to contain his exhilaration at shaking Madiba's hand and excited at the prospect of going to France, Ntuli said he would cherish the moment for the rest of his life.

"I am very happy to meet Mandela and even happier to be part of the winning team going to play soccer in France. This is a great opportunity for me to represent my country," he said.

Bree primary's soccer team would be jetting out of the country early next week and would be in Paris by Wednesday, 3 September for the start of the Danone Nations Cup, according to Samad.

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