It wasn’t pretty, says coach
AMATUKS BOSS: WE CAME HERE WITH A PLAN, BUT I WILL TAKE THE POINT
It is not every day that a coach would say a draw was the best result for them, but University of Pretoria’s Evangelos Vellios came close to it after their hard-earned 1-1 National First Division (NFD) point away to TS Galaxy on Sunday afternoon.
The Rockets were in their element and ran rings around AmaTuks but their Achilles heel – their failure to make possession count – caught up with them again. Vellios admitted their plan for the match didn’t involve playing attractive football.
The 34-year-old, who was Sean Bartlett’s assistant last season, said their plan involved pushing Galaxy back by using long balls aimed at their tall Senegalese striker Mame Niang. And it almost worked.
“We wanted to put them under pressure with Mame leading us up front. He scored but was later injured. They got the equaliser but we should have managed the game better. I will take a point here,” he said.
“I am not happy with the result ... we came with a game plan, but it was not very pretty,” added Velios.
“But we tried to bounce back. We wanted the three points which would have been nice just before the Fifa break. But we all know what coach Dan Malesela is about … his teams move the ball around quickly, so it was a difficult match. They were in control but we could have stolen it,” added the youngest coach in local football.
Vellios embraced the international break, saying it gave him time to work on a few things.
“We have a few things we have to work on during the break so we can get back to winning again,” he said. His counterpart, Dan Malesela, was however in two minds about the break.
“It is good and bad. It is good in the sense that we can reflect on a few things. But it is bad in that you would prefer to keep the momentum going,” he said. Malesela was unhappy with his team who he said were unnecessarily dropping points every weekend.
“I am not happy at all, we are donating two points every week now. If you look at them, they are very happy they got a draw here. This needs fixing,” he said.
“The problem is we have people excelling in training, they give you the impression they can score goals, but when it comes to matches they do this.”