The Champions Series: Highland Park u19s’ Sifiso Mnguni
With the 2024 Gauteng Development League (GDL) now in the history books, SuperSport Schools Plus explores the journeys of the teams that triumphed this season under the “Champions Series” banner.
This week, Ongama Gcwabe narrates the story of the u19 champions, Highlands Park, with the help of head coach Sifiso Mnguni.
Highlands Park constructed a unique journey this season. The fact that the team won back-to-back league titles might lead some to mistakenly think that “The ‘Lions of the North” were dominant throughout their two title-winning campaigns.
They were dominant in 2023, but coach Sifiso Mnguni and his charges had a much tougher path to the title of champions this year. They were nearly flawless last year, but it took a gritty, stubborn effort to repeat as the league winners.
Mnguni was struck with many unexpected challenges at the start of the year. One of the biggest was the loss of key players, which forced Mnguni to put together a plan B.
Early in the season, Highlands Park dropped some points while their rivals, Mamelodi Sundowns, were dominating the u19 division. Mnguni, though, finally found and settled on the right personnel, courtesy of a very efficient recruitment structure at Balfour Park.
“With the start, we lost a few points. We did not have the full team. We lost a few boys. One went to Cape Town, and the others were going to university. We did not start very well, so we needed to regroup,” Mnguni opened up in an exclusive interview with SuperSport Schools Plus.
“We were not so happy with the team and we needed to recruit new faces. So, the start was just difficult because we had to put the team together and put a structure together.”
With the new team lineup established, the next task for Mnguni was to build camaraderie and establish a strong culture. Most often, those elements are built when a team goes through tough times, and when Mnguni took his team to Cape Town for the Bayhill Premier Cup, they were met with stiff opposition.
Instead of fracturing, the Highlands Park boys gravitated towards one another, a feat that Mnguni described as the highlight of the season and the key element in their successful defence of the GDL title.
“When I look back, we went to the Bayhill tournament in Cape Town, and I thought this is a new team and the tournament might be difficult, but the boys showed us their true colours,” Mnguni said.
“The trip to Cape Town, I thought it brought us closer, it strengthened the bonds. We reached the semis of the Bayhill, which is a very difficult tournament.
“In that space, we had to learn a little bit more about each other and that prepared us for the things that we would have [to deal with] throughout the season.
“That trip brought us all together and I would say it was the moment that made us champions.”
With the team being fairly new, Mnguni had to change his tactics and tailor-make them for the 2024 class.
In the title-winning 2023 season, Highlands Park played with three defenders at the back. In 2024, Mnguni switched to four defenders in an attempt to strengthen what was a rather inexperienced defensive line.
Moreover, because of his side’s inexperience, Mnguni and his backroom staff had to find ways to accelerate the development of his players, to help them understand what was required of them at the u19 GDL level.
“I don’t think we did anything much different except that I feel we needed to work harder on the boys. Basically, we worked harder on the video analysis sessions and the corrections, and we were a little more aggressive in our approach in the video analysis room,” he revealed.
“I don’t think we were the most talented side but we were the hardest-working side in the GDL. You could see the [low] number of goals we conceded, the numbers reflect the amount of work we did in the background.
“Perhaps the only difference was that last year we played with three at the back, but this year we felt we were too vulnerable, so we opted to go with four at the back but still maintained the three-two build-up.”
