When strikers fail to strike

There was an affl iction this weekend that affected the most composed of strikers. Standing in front of an open goal on Saturday, Mamelodi Sundowns’ Namibian striker Peter Shalulile, the joint-winner of the Golden Boot last season, somehow managed to put the ball over the bar, when scoring actually looked easier.

It was a chance to give Masandawana a 2- 0 lead over Maritzburg United, and the game ended 1-1.

Shalulile has had a fine start to his fledgling career at Sundowns, with two league goals already, and had set up Themba Zwane’s goal earlier in the piece against Maritzburg, so the Namibian should largely be left in peace, but it was still a staggering miss.

And yet it wasn’t even close to the most ridiculous miss on Saturday.

That award had to go to Chelsea’s German striker Timo Werner, who was standing on the goal-line as Olivier Giroud fl icked on Mason Mount’s corner, with Chelsea trailing 1- 0 early-on to Leeds in the English Premier League.

Giroud had already turned in celebration, presumably assuming, like everyone else, that the ball would either go in or Werner would help it into an empty net, and yet somehow the young attacker sent the ball away from goal, his quick attempt to recover bouncing back off the underside of the bar.

Werner has had some bad misses for Chelsea this season and this was arguably the worst of the lot, yet he does keep on going, evidenced again by his assist for Christian Pulisic in the last seconds of Saturday’s game.

For all his missed chances, Werner has bagged eight goals and six assists in all competitions in 17 appearances for Chelsea this season.

Perhaps the lesson here is that for strikers the key is more how you recover from missing chances than actually failing to hit the back of the net with the goal gaping.

There is a decent bet Shalulile will bounce back when Sundowns play TS Galaxy on 15 December in their next DStv Premiership match, and either way, that he will be close to the top of the scoring charts again come the end of the season.

Sundowns were not alone, meanwhile, in wasting opportunities this weekend. Orlando Pirates missed a glut in their 2-2 draw with Cape Town City, with clearly only Vincent Pule putting on his shooting boots when he woke up in the morning.

If Peter Leeuwenburgh in the City goal put up a fine display, there is also a good argument that with better finishing, the Dutch keeper would have stood no chance with a few of the chances that came the Buccaneers’ way.

And last, but by no means least, you have Kaizer Chiefs.

Gavin Hunt must feel like a broken record when he talks about his Amakhosi team not taking their chances and Chiefs’ main consolation from another wasteful day against PWD Bamenda of Cameroon on Saturday was that they still qualified for the next round ( group phase) of the Caf Champions League.

If Shalulile and Werner’s efforts look like an aberration, the inability of some of Chiefs’ att ackers to score is starting to look like a chronic, incurable illness.

And it’s not as if they lack quality strikers to do the job.