Thomas Kwenaite: In football you win some and lose others, but losing to SuperSport United in the MTN8 semifinal must have been painful.
Denis Onyango: We knew that the away goal we got against them in the first leg would give us an added advantage, but they are a team that is on a high and has been scoring goals in almost every match and so their opening goal really disorganized us and we started chasing the game. And, much as we tried, we just could not break them down and when they scored a second one, it became so much harder for us.
TK: Looking back, what is it that Sundowns did not do well against SuperSport, which you need to correct going forward?
DO: I think we didn’t play very well as a team and they took their chances. Our plan was to initially frustrate them by keeping the ball for as long as we could and while we managed to do that, we could not convert the chances we created whilst they got an early goal, which really disorganized us.
TK: Getting back to the domestic league after the disappointment of the MTN Cup, it was an important win against Maritzburg United.
DO: Yes, the game against Maritz burg was also a very difficult game considering that we had just lost to SuperSport in the cup and so we had no choice but to win. But, of course, the winning goal came at the referee’s added time, but we kept on fighting and believing that the goal was coming and hence we were rewarded in the end. It was a good win for us as it helped us move up the log table and approach the Champions League game in highs spirits.
TK: You’ve reached the last round of the CAF Champions League (before the group stages), after simply cruising past AS Otoho d’Oyo.
This story is from the September 25, 2019 edition of Soccer Laduma.
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This story is from the September 25, 2019 edition of Soccer Laduma.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
We have a problem
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Cut Lehlohonolo Seema’s skin andhe’ll probably bleed green andwhite – such has been the man’s loyalty to Bloemfontein Celtic. Born and bred in neighbouring Lesotho, the Mangaung outfit is a club that’s always had a pull factor on him. So much that it is they who pulled him from obscure Bantu United from the mountainous kingdom in 1998, and he would go on to represent the club until 2006 when the allure of Orlando Pirates, understandably, proved too great a pull factor. Yet even a five-year spell with the Soweto giants, which included a season-long loan stint at Mpumalanga Black Aces, would not prevent him being pulled back in the direction of Siwelele, albeit to begin a coaching journey in the junior ranks. The next step was to become an assistant, a job he performed with aplomb, before being called on to take the hotseat together with John Maduka after the departure of Steve Komphela at the tail end of 2018. Much against general expectation, the duo has done fairly well, if Celtic’s off-field troubles of the recent past are to be taken into consideration. Soccer Laduma’s Beaver Nazo sat down with Seema to discuss this, that, and the other.
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Before signing for Mamelodi Sundowns last season,Lyle Lakay knew that he would be used as a leftback and not in his preferred left wing position, something that he surprisingly did not have a problem with. In his first season with the club last term, he played a key role as they went onto win an unprecedented ninth Absa Premiership league title. This season has been a bit of a slow one for Lakay, who has been used mostly as a substitute, but there’s still a lot of football to be played both locally and on the continent, so he has time to fight for his place in the starting line-up. In this interview, the former Cape Town City and Bloemfontein Celtic player chats to Soccer Laduma’s Tshepang Mailwane about his time at the Tshwane giants so far, their chances of winning the CAF Champions League and why he believes they can close the gap on current Kaizer Chiefs, who have been in fine form since the start of the campaign.
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