Bantwana leave nothing to chance
Former Baroka FC coach Kgoloko Thobejane’s quotable quote “football can kill you” made sense to Maccabi FC’s Mokete Tsotetsi after his side’s narrow 1-0 defeat to TS Galaxy in a National First Division match at Kameelsrivier in Mpumalanga on Sunday.
Mokete referred to Thobejane’s words after the match where his side squandered opportunities, only for Lucky Setelele to score a late winner and ensure the three points remained in KwaNdebele.
“You know football … coach Thobejane once said football can kill you. He was right. It was a good game playing away. They had their 12th man with the number of fans here.
“But we had come for the three points. We had our chances but didn’t bury them.
“It was not our day. You know what happens when you don’t bury your chances, they get theirs and score. That is what happened to us,” said Tsotetsi.
The 36-year-old coach however remains optimistic and said he would not change any of his players for anything.
“The league is a marathon, we are newcomers and some of the players are still adjusting. I know their ability and they are good players, we just need to motivate them. I am happy with the team I have,” he said.
The day’s winning coach, Dan Malesela, was happy with his first win although he admitted that the Maccabi keeper handed them the win with his poor showing between the sticks.
“It was a game of a lot of errors,” said Malesela. “I think we made life difficult for ourselves where it should not have been.
“We didn’t take risks when we could have. We didn’t exploit their wings enough to try and penetrate and eliminate their fullbacks.
“If we had we would have found joy. But we only started that very late on in the match.
“Our movement in the box was somewhat limited. Defensively, it was also patchy in some moments,” said the former Chippa United coach.
Malesela said he wants more of the same results in their next games so they can join the teams who are competing for the NFD title and promotion to the Absa Premiership.
“We need to have three more games where we can get full points so that we can push ourselves to a position where we can say we can compete. We need to turn our dominance into points.” Bantwana coach Simphiwe Dludlu (above) has explained the reason behind the team’s early departure for Uruguay, where they will be competing at this year’s Fifa Under-17 World Cup.
The squad arrived in Uruguay on Sunday having left South Africa on Saturday, and will continue with the preparations for the tournament, which is due to start in two weeks.
“We opted to come early so that we can acclimitise. Today it’s a bit windy and we come from a place where it is very hot, so we wanted to see the area, the training sites and being able to familiarise ourselves with everything quicker,” said Dludlu.
“The place we are accommodated in is very nice and it is good that we came in early ... then it’s business as usual compared to just coming in a few days before the tournament and they are still mesmerised by everything they see and they lose focus. So, for me, it’s easy to plan ahead and see each day and plan better when we are not under pressure.
“It was imperative to come here early and be able to sit and plan, absorb as much as we can so that when we start working there won’t be any disturbance.”
Despite enjoying their stay so far in South America, the Bantwana coach added that the travelling is exhausting, but says it’s worth it.
“The journey was long, with a lot of stops, but it’s all worth it. And I think the girls have enjoyed travelling knowing they are going to a worthy place. So, it has really been great travelling knowing we are going there for a greater cause.”
While the team opted to go to Uruguay earlier than the other nations, Dludlu’s troops will play a friendly match against the hosting nation Uruguay on November 5 as part of their last preparation phase before the tournaments kicks off on November 13, with the final on December 1.