Johannesburg Derby – A Game of High Intensity In This Week’s Varsity Cup

Andries Ndlovu

The question of who will emerge victorious in the Johannesburg derby remains unanswered until Thursday evening where Wits University will take on the University of Johannesburg’s Football team (UJ) in what is expected to be a high-intensity Varsity Cup match.

Wits will be looking forward to maintaining the momentum they gained last week following a 2-0 home victory over the Central University of Technology. The win meant that the Witsies have ended their winless campaign after losing their first two Varsity Cup games which saw them conceding ten goals and scoring just once. A poor start to the tournament.

Meanwhile, UJ will be looking to lick their wounds following last week’s loss to title rivals TUT. Like Wits, UJ also had a disappointing start to the tournament since they only managed to pocket three points in three games.

The team is struggling in terms of finding the back of the net, with just a goal after so far in this year’s campaign. Despite conceding three goals, defensively UJ looks solid with an average of one goal per game.

Wits will be without two of their veteran players, Captain Kaizer Maphanga and Mahle Ntabane, who will be away with the University Sports South Africa (USSA) national team.

This could be a problem for a team with a shaking defence. Should UJ capitalize on the chances they are known for creating, they might claim victory over their neighbours. It is only a matter of goal difference between the two sides who have three points each.

In their last two meetings, UJ has won all games with a combined score of 3-0. Last year the two sides met in a tough tie of the same tournament where they both needed a victory to reanimate hopes of a semi-final spot, which were already hanging by a thread.

UJ won 2-0, with Wits having an opportunity for revenge in May 2017 in a SAB league game but failed, suffering a 1-0 defeat.

Tomorrow’s game, 17 August 2017, kicks off at 18:30 at Bidvest wits. Tickets are still available at R10.  The game will also be broadcast live on Supersport 4. TOJ