25 Nov 2019

Gaborone United coach, Nikola Kavazovic on November 25 left the Galaxy Stadium in Jwaneng on the back of a police pick-up after his own team’s supporter’s bayed for his blood.

This followed GU’s loss by a solitary goal to Jwaneng Galaxy in the first leg of the Mascom Top 8 cup. The supporters have apparently been unhappy as a result of the team’s poor showing in previous games in the league.

Their anger finally burst the seams after their team failed to break their jinx against Galaxy. GU has not had any luck against Galaxy in the past few seasons. In fact, the latter are the current Mascom Top 8 holders courtesy of beating the former 2-0 in the last final.

Last season in the league, GU also failed to beat Galaxy in both games, and the last league encounter about two weeks back also ended 3-1 in favour of Galaxy, a history that made Galaxy favourites going into the game.

Galaxy’s goal by substitute Gift Moyo was, however, not as a result of brilliance, but could be considered a ‘lucky goal’ as it found the net after what many considered a foul on Rentse Keakabetse by the latter.

With Keakabetse still on the floor and many expecting the referee to blow the whistle, Moyo hit a shot that took a deflection and beat GU keeper, Ookeditse Semelamela, who had already committed himself and was off balance.

The effort even riffled Kavazovic on the technical bench and later labelled the goal ‘a result of a situation that has nothing much to do with football.’

In a post-match interview, Kavazovic indicated that they had hoped to at least score an important away goal, but that proved a tough effort.

He, however, said that all hope was not lost as they executed most of their game plan well. 

“Our defence organisation was perfect and we did 100 per cent of the game plan. For me as a coach that was more than enough when I see my players doing their job with passion,” he said.

He said their game plan hinged on hard defending and trying to catch their opponents on offensive transition.

“We did that well, but were only unfortunate not to score from the about five chances we created. Had we scored first I am very sure that we would have won the game, but the second leg is coming in a fortnight and we are going to attack them from the first minute even though that seems mission impossible considering the quality of players they have, but we are in a positive mood and will give it our best to go through to the semis,” he said.

For his part, Galaxy coach, Miguel Da Costa indicated that even though they won by a small margin, it was important that they did not concede a goal, which would have made the second leg much tougher for his team.

He said GU also made the job tough for them because they did not use the formation they predicted, which forced him to make a tactical change at half time to try and liquidate the opponent.

Despite the win, Da Costa credited GU for their fight, saying they were not an easy opponent.

The two will face off again in the second leg in a fortnight. Ends