27 Jan 2020

The mining town teams of Jwaneng Galaxy and Orapa United met in the first leg of the Mascom Top 8 semi-final at Jwaneng on January 26, which resulted in a stalemate. 

Both teams have a lot in common, including the manner of their formation, a trait that has made them sworn enemies.

However, The Ostriches, as Orapa United is fondly known, can claim to have gotten the mining towns bragging rights as they went away with a respectable one goal draw, courtesy of the stocky Lawrence Nduga, who cancelled out Thero Setsile’s strike within four minutes.

With Galaxy pressing the visitors deep into their own half, they must have thought that the odds would be on their side when Setsile struck after 20 minutes, albeit with the luck of a deflection to beat United’s Lesenya Malapela on the posts.

However, Galaxy only had themselves to blame for letting in United’s equaliser after four minutes of their goal, as its defence took too long to close down Mothusi Johnson, who was given all the time to take his options just outside Galaxy’s box.

Johnson finally decided on feeding Nduga on the left wing, who struck a fierce shot that gave Galaxy keeper, Katlego Mbise no chance. 

The result did unsettle Galaxy gaffer, Miguel Da Costa, who indicated in a post-match interview that indeed the return leg in two weeks’ time would be tough and was for any team to win.

“Both of these teams have quality players and play quality football. 

No one is better than the other and even before this game started you couldn’t predict the winner, such will be the case again in Orapa,”    

However, Da Costa also partly blamed his team’s loss to a few mistakes that they made and failure to utilise one or two more chances they had, which were clearer than the ones they had against them.

Da Costa however said that they still had two weeks to plan for the return leg. 

For his part, Orapa United coach, Mogomotsi Mpote indicated that even although the play displayed by his team was not the best, the goal they got away with was exactly what they had planned for as it would now take the pressure away a bit from their home game in the second leg.

Mpote indicated that despite carrying a one goal advantage, they are planning to attack Galaxy from the first whistle at Orapa to deny them an all-important early goal.

“For us to make this away goal count and maybe carry us through to the final, we need to attack them from the start and put them under pressure, and we are confident that if we score one goal, we are done,” he said.  ENDS