Billiat scores crucial away goal for Downs
THEY looked dead and buried but, with about four minutes to go, Khama Billiat breathed life into Mamelodi Sundowns’ CAF Champions League campaign yesterday.
Billiat, with a well-taken goal, made sure Sundowns secured a result that Pitso Mosimane had termed acceptable in his prematch talk.
Zesco United fans had been buoyant throughout the match as their side led comfortably 2-0, but were stunned into silence after Billiat fed by Anthony Laffor after some brilliance by Keagan Dolly scored a crucial away goal for the visitors.
Zesco United went into this first leg semifinal with an impeccable home record, having not lost here in the competition this year.
Sundowns banked on their brilliant away record but succumbed to defeat here, thanks to Jackson Mwanza’s quick-fire brace in the second half.
Sundowns now head into next weekend s second leg needing to score at least once, with Billiat’s goal handing them a chance to make amends in Tshwane.
The Zambians fully merited their victory after a disciplined performance laced with brilliant runs and passes to which Sundowns, surprisingly, had no answers.
Zesco showed why they are such a force at this 55 000-seat venue, even though it was only half full. The mighty Al-Ahly of Egypt and Asec Mimosa of Ivory Coast both left this stadium in tears in recent months, and now Sundowns have followed suit, although they could claim moral victory after securing that late away goal. Still, Mosimane will have to lift his side to acceptable levels in the home leg in six days’ time, because what we saw here was way short of the normal competence expected of the Brazilians.
Rarely has Mosimane had to do so much match-day coaching. He barely took his seat on the bench for the entire first half, as his players showed glaring signs of succumbing to the early pressure put on by Zesco.
For some reason, Sundowns decided to deal with the threat posed by Zesco’s dangerous forward duo of Jesse Were and Mwanza by deploying an offside trap. It nearly got them punished several times, none more frightening than when Were broke clear in the ninth minute.
He had run off the shoulder of Thabo Nthethe and, finding himself with keeper Denis Onyango to beat, the striker hesitated and allowed Onyango to produce a well-timed tackle that had the Sundowns bench sighing collectively in relief.
The tone was set for a first half which, largely, was one-sided as Zesco hogged possession, were more comfortable on the ball and disrupted Sundowns to the extent that they had to resort to long balls.
The biggest headache for Mosimane as he pranced around the touchline was his left side of defence. Not even a half-time team talk could bring improvement, as Zesco took the lead after Simon Silwimba surged through and crossed for Mwanza to nod home after 55 minutes.
Sundowns should have done more to stop Mwanza’s second though, as his free kick from long range easily sailed past Onyango a few minutes after his first goal.
That proved to be the clincher for Zesco, but you can bet on Sundowns to declare the tie is not over, hence they celebrated Billiat s goal euphorically.