‘We shouldn’t have needed penalties’

Although SuperSport United eventually booked their place in the Telkom Knockout quarterfinals after overcoming Polokwane City 6-5 in a penalty shootout, coach Kaitano Tembo says his team could have sealed the deal as early as the first half.

Thuso Phala (left) came off the bench to fire Matsantsantsa into the lead but his efforts were cancelled out by an Edgar Manaka added-time header, which sent the match into extra-time, and a series of well-taken penalties were the order of the shootout until Ayanda Nkili ballooned his spot-kick over the bar to hand SuperSport the win.

“We made it very difficult for ourselves because this game should have been wrapped up in the first half,” a visibly relieved Tembo told SuperSport TV after the game at the Old Peter Mokaba Stadium.

He continued: “We created enough chances, we had a great start and throughout the 90 minutes we had the better chances, yet we conceded a goal. We are normally good at defending in those situations but we didn’t really attack the ball.

“The decisions there were not very good, we just lost it,” said the Matsatsantsa boss.

However, Tembo was pleased with how the match went from the outset as United created no fewer than three chances with- in the opening two minutes of the match.

“Overall I think we had a great game but we just couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net,” said Tembo, before he went on to give his reasoning behind the two substitutions he made.

“We took off Ghampani Lungu because he had a lot of bashing, he worked very hard and he also had an opportunity at the start but I took him off because we saw he was getting tired and we brought on Richard Boateng. We also took Aubrey Modiba off because he came back from the national team looking a little bit tired ... he wasn’t as sharp as he normally is. Thuso came on and I am happy for him because he really played well.”