Larsen lauds Chippa’s fighting spirit
Despite feeling disappointed after suffering his first loss as coach of Chippa United, Clinton Larsen is proud of his side for putting up a good fight against SuperSport United.
Larsen’s charges lost 1-0 to Matsatsantsa at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane over the weekend. He said he’d take the loss on the chin, but also admitted they were in a much better situation than when he arrived in Port Elizabeth more than five weeks ago.
Larsen added that they couldn’t perform miracles by winning every game in the league, but the progress was there in the team, especially after the loss.
“Six weeks ago I said to the team we are going to lose at some point, but for me it’s the character we need to show in order to bounce back after defeat.
“I think that’s what makes a good team and in the first 20 minutes of the game we gave them too much space.
“We agreed before the game that we needed to impose ourselves. It’s our homeground but we were a little bit flat for 20 minutes. But in the last minutes, we really took the game to them,” said Larsen.
“So we were a little bit unfortunate not to take the lead because we had too many chances but Ronwen Williams kept them in the game. But then in saying so in the second half there was only one team, us.”
The Chilli Boys mentor said he warned his side before the game of how experienced the Matsatsantsa side was and that it would take a lot for the Pretoria pressure.
“90% of their players are over 30 in age and are going to use that to their advantage. You let them get a goal and it will be difficult to break them down.
“And that’s exactly how it was, they sat on that lead. They tried to play on the break in the second but I thought our passing was a little bit slow and we could have done better in terms of the tempo of our passing.
“That was the disappointing thing but the boys tried right through to the final whistle,” he added.
SuperSport United coach Kaitano Tembo said his charges worked for the win and they deserved it.
“We had a good start in the first half and we dominated the ball, and we were very effective and we got into good areas,” said Tembo. side to crack under
“And we got a few opportunities as well and they never really troubled us.
“In the second half, so we started off where we had finished, and we were more positive and I think we could have scored in the first two minutes.
“We wanted to keep them under pressure, but it’s normal that the team chasing the game will start pushing people upfront and they’ll attack with eight players.
“So we needed to defend the box very well and we brought in a defender because we had to nullify the threat of [Thabo] Rakhale who was giving us problems on the left.”
Tembo continued: “And I think we worked very hard for this result and I was happy, especially since that disappointing result against Baroka.”