Giant killers Baroka reach Telkom KO final
Bakgaga master scorching heat as Wits wilt
With King Monada’s smash hit song, Idibala, blasting in the background, Baroka proved that this festive season belongs to Limpopo after overcoming Bidvest Wits 1-0 to reach the Telkom Knockout final on a tectonic afternoon yesterday. When referee Victor Hlungwani blew the final whistle, there was no shortage of teary eyes as the Baroka players and staff emotionally embraced. An eighth-minute free-kick from Matome Mabeba was enough to get them through. Reaching the final is an extraordinary accomplishment for the upstarts who were founded in 2007 by Khurishi Mphahlele.
Their Zambian coach Wedson Nyirenda took in the moment with a short prayer, perhaps in dedication to his late mother, who died earlier this month.
Baroka are now the first Limpopo team to reach a final since 2011, when Black Leopards lost to Orlando Pirates in the Nedbank Cup.
They will now have a chance to rewrite history in the TKO final against Bucs on December 8 in Port Elizabeth. With temperatures scorching at 33 degrees, Baroka’s familiarity with playing in these conditions shone through. Baroka’s game management was better than that of Wits, who struggled throughout the opening half-hour. Going into the match, the talk had been about playmaker Gift Motupa’s return to his former club.
But coach Gavin Hunt introduced him in the second half. Bakgaga’s one-two punch of Mduduzi Mdantsane and Tebogo Sodi was giving the Wits defence headaches. It would have been expected that Wits would play with more energy considering they had Haashim Domingo and Deon Hotto on the pitch. But they were rather lethargic in attack and posed little danger to the tenacious home side.
Hunt tried to switch things around in the second half but it was clearly not Wits’s day. Motupa made his presence felt but the necessary link-up play with his teammates was just not there.
In the end, the home side held on for what will surely go down as one of the biggest achievements in their existence, surpassing the NFD title win in 2016.
Baroka’s game management was better