Errors cost Chippa dearly in Cup game

COACH Dan “Dance” Malesela said mistakes, poor finishing and not following instructions cost Chippa United in their 2-0 loss against Highlands Park in the last 16 of the Telkom Knockout Cup.

Goals from Collins Mbesuma and Edwin Sitayitayi for Highlands saw Chippa fail to progress to the next round of the competition.

After an impressive debut in the MTN8 competition where they were beaten 1-0 over two semifinal legs by Mamelodi Sundowns, Chippa were expected to do much better in the Cup.

“I am trying to be calm, when I am not,” said a furious Malesela.

“There are quite a number of things that are upsetting me. We made several mistakes that led to goals.

“One is a foul that led to the free kick in the first half and also the ball slipping out of our goalkeeper’s hands.

“The second goal also I don’t know what happened.

“Marc van Heerden missed the ball or something, and then your goalkeeper coming out. I don’t know where he was going .

“It’s a whole lot of mistakes that we made that cost us this game.

“But also the fact that we had chances and we didn’t score counts a lot.

“Everything else could have been erased if we had scored.”

He said these things happen for a reason but that they cannot be tolerated and had to stop.

The coach believes there should be some room for making errors but then the only way of correcting the mistakes is to score more goals than your opponents.

“Which we did not do,” he said. “The problem is not how we played but more or less with what we didn’t do. So many times we messed up instructions.”

Malesela point a finger at the opposition for wasting time. “It’s not good for the supporters because they are paying money and they travel long distances to watch football.

“Football is limited to 90 minutes. These tactics of goalkeepers sitting down and laying down every time faking injury must stop at some point. It is not fair, it is not fair play and it is not okay for football.

“You know you were injured but after the game you are jumping up and down like nothing happened.

“There is something wrong.”