Cosmos’ title race is back on track

JOMO COSMOS captain Fredric Nsabiyumva went into Sunday’s match against Magesi FC with tremendous pressure on his shoulders.

His side had been struggling to produce winning results in their last three league matches which saw them drop to ninth position on the NFD standings.

Another a loss or a draw would have seen them still being caught up in the bottom half of the table, and Nsabiyumva said he was pleased they were able walk away 2-1 win over their Limpopo counterparts.

Cosmos are now sixth on the table with 19 points after 13 league matches.

“This was one of the toughest matches we’ve played this season,” the lanky 21-year-old defender said.

“We were playing against side that had nothing to lose. But I’m glad we were able to come out with a win.

“We went into this game under pressure to deliver results,” Nsabiyumva added. “The team had not been doing well and we knew we had to fight to win this match.

“We even had a meeting among ourselves as players to say things could not continue like this, if we were serious about contending for the league title this season.

“Everybody (in the team) knew that we had to switch on in this one. And I’m glad we finally did.”

Cosmos will have to “switch on” again when they take on second placed Royal Eagles at the weekend at Harry Gwala Stadium. The Burundian-born centre-back admitted that it was not going to be an easy game. He, however, added that he was quite confident that they were going to do well in the match-up. Ezenkosi have a strategy in place as they seek promotion, he explained.

“I believe we will,” Nsabiyumva said. “The plan is to see the team finish within the top three bracket. It would be nice if we can go all the way and win the league title though. We’ve got about two games to go before the festive break.

“The plan is to win all our matches leading up to the second round. If we can do that we would have achieved our objective of being in the top five bracket going into the mid-season break.”

Nsabiyumva added: “The Eagles match is going to be tough.

“They lost their previous match (3-2 against AmaZulu) and chances are they’ll go into this encounter highly-motivated to make up for that defeat. Another plus for them is that they’ll be playing at home. It will be tough but I’m confident we’ll do well.”