Girls are beautiful, boys play chess - Chapa Dimba na Safaricom comes to Rift Valley
The Chapa Dimba Na Safaricom Youth Tournament culminates in the Rift Valley this weekend with the regional finals lined up on Saturday, March 7th and, Sunday March 8th,, at the Kericho Green Stadium.
Itigo Girls (Nandi North), Achievers (Kajiado), Wiyeeta (West Pokot), and Bomet Queens (Bomet) qualified for the girls finals. The reigning champions, Kitale Queens, did not make it to the finals stage.
In the boys will be Tumkas (Uasin Gishu), Laiser Hill (Kajiado), White Rhino (Transmara), and Kapenguria Heroes (West Pokot) will square off to see who will represent the region on the national tournament scheduled in June 2020. As was with the girls - the reigning champions - Al Ahyl FC from Kajiado did not make it.
But what is expected in the Rift valley Regional finals?
Tisini Sports having covered the Eastern and Nairobi regional finals, has come up with some interesting stats over the two previous tournaments.
Goals
From the Eastern to the Nairobi regional finals, it is evident that on average the girls game has goals. This can be attributed to the open and free flowing nature that the girls are playing. The girls are playing simple football. As Johan Cruff said “Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple”.
Whereas with the boys the game is quite tactical. The opponents are seizing each other up, reading their tactics, knowing the key people to mark out, which is leading to few goals in both the semi-finals and finals on average. It is a game of chess on the football pitch. So possibly expect the same in the Rift Valley regional finals. The girls will play simple and score more, beautiful. The boys will play chess on the pitch, tactical.
|
Boys |
Girls |
|
|
Nairobi |
6 |
15 |
|
Eastern |
15 |
14 |
|
Total |
21 |
29 |
https://twitter.com/TisiniSports/status/1226889638763253761
Fouls
With football being a contact game, fouls are expected. But are fouls more accidental or technical?
Well seeing that in the Nairobi Regional finals there were fewer goals and more fouls, perhaps they are tactical. But maybe not given that the tournament is aimed at the youth, there could be that youthful aggression, which with time needs taming.
As would be expected the boys game has more fouls in both Nairobi and Eastern compared with the girls. Expect the same in Rift Valley.
Corners
The eastern and Nairobi regions teams preferred inswinging corners to out swinging and short corners. Out of the 87 corners played, 49 were inswingers, 26 were outswingers and 12 only short corners.
Source: Tisini Sports; A graph showing preferred corners by boys teams in the Nairobi and Eastern regional finals.
Source: Tisini Sports; Corner Graph showing preferred types of corners by Girls teams in the Nairobi and Eastern regions.
It will be interesting to see what type of corners the teams from the Rift valley region prefer and how they perform.
Attempts
Football is also an emotional sport, with fans not only being affiliated to a certain team but also being emotionally attached.
The half-chances created, the near-misses are what helps with moving the people emotionally. Most of the times entertaining games are always associated with the number of goals scored, which is closely related to chances creation.
Thus the Nairobi and eastern region did not disappoint as it delivered in terms of chances created.
The Eastern region topped the Nairobi region in their respective categories with Yasin Mohamed and Susan Wanjeri topping the scoring charts with 7 and 4 goals respectively.
https://twitter.com/TisiniSports/status/1228733926757347328
The Chapa Dimba Na Safaricom Tournament has become a source of entertainment for the Eastern, Nairobi, Central, Garissa, and Coastal regions, now It’s Rift Valleys’ time to be treated.