Napsa Stars on “remote control”

MUKWIMA CHILALA writes NAPSA Stars coach Mohammed Fathi says he has only been able to spend time with his players on “remote control” due to the COVID-19 guidelines that had seen sports activities suspended. Fathi said that training had continued for his team during the partial lockdown at an individual level with supervision being conducted through WhatsApp where he has been monitoring his players’ training sessions. Fathi said that a lot of time was spent on remote communication with the players through the social media application, sending them training programmes and reminding them to stay fit because there were still nine matches left to be played in the 2019/20 season. “There is group training among the players and we communicate with them through a WhatsApp group. So far so good, we do a lot of things but to keep our team in shape we work in small area, one meter by one meter and also some agility exercise, timing, running; so we do a lot of things to keep our players fit,” Fathi said. “We are hoping for things to open up and we hope European competitions will come back soon which will give us hope and ideas on how we can also implement here.” The Napsa Stars coach said that the break had its positives in that players have had to rest. He further said that the pandemic period had given some of his injured players enough time to recover and resume training. Fathi was optimistic his team would come back strong after the partial lockdown and that the team would be back to having a fully-fledged squad after having recorded some injuries in the latter part of the league. “It has given us a positive rest and before the league starts it needs about two weeks for players to regain fitness but the optimal fitness can come from game time,” he said. “The lockdown has helped us with the injured players. Bornwell Mwape will be a hundred percent fit, Aaron Kabwehad an operation a few days ago and am sure after the lock down he will be ready and Mavugo has recovered from his illness and he will be ready. After the lockdown Napsa Stars will be a full house.” The Pensioners are currently second on the log and are fighting for their maiden league title and continental appearance. Napsa are also in the run for the ABSA Cup quarter finals, in which they were scheduled to have played against KabweWarriors just before games were suspended. The Sun