09 March 2019
Tembisa, South Africa

Another month, another trophy! I had no indication that this existed, and so it was pleasing to get up and win it. We are still alive in the league, Champions League qualifying and the Nedbank Cup so it is a rather busy time.

Blow by Blow

CAF Champions League Prelim Round Leg 1

Back into the champions League again. The opposition are expected to be brushed aside without a fight. It is always dangerous to assume that.

New signings Nene and Maieco start in a slightly rotated side from the last match. Zech is moved to his more natural role in central midfield.

The feeling is almost universally that all we have to turn up to win. We will not take this lightly.

Two first half goals proved sufficient for us to secure the win. They came with the intention of not losing heavily and succeeded.

We hit the post a whopping seven times, yet only created 2 clear cut chances.

Nedbank Cup Round 1

These guys are one of our affiliates, which means that some of their players won’t be avaialble due to being on lone from us.

Close to a full rotation here. If we get ahead early the front three will be having some time off before next match.

We are strong favourites here. We need to capitalise on this today.

Two first half goals were sufficient to win it for us. Once we got in front it was plain sailing for the rest of the match.

Better shots on target ratio. Pleased to see young Nene pick up the POM award.

CAF Super Cup

These guys have conceded 50% of goals against in the last 15 minutes of the match. Conversely they are solid in the first half hour. Something I will look to exploit.

Probably my best side available. Grigorjevs moved back to the bench to give Majola a start. Majola is my main assist generator.

Nothing between the sides. I am taking nothing for granted here!

Phew! Finally we seal the deal in a final on penalties. Full credit to ES Tunis who made us work very hard. This was one trophy I was not expecting to win.

The stats show just how close the game was. We created more but their keeper was mostly in the right place. Both goals conceded from headers.

Match 17/30 – ABSA Premiership

They concede a lot of assists down the left. Majola may be starting this game again as he is my top assist creator.

Ali and Tseka come back in for this match. Lubasa rotates in for Asante at the back.

They give us reasonable odds for a win. I am feeling quietly confident today.

A solid performance for us with 5 goals in last 15 minutes. Zech bagged a hat-trick which was a highlight of the match.

We let the game slide a bit which could be fatal against a good side. Still three points in the bag is a good outcome.

CAF Champions League Prelim Round Leg 2

The only game they have played is the cup tie against us. This is the down side of Africa!

Nogi gets the game off, as does Kangila at right back. The rest of the team picks itself really.

Port Authority showed they were hard to break down, so I am not expecting an easy game.

In the end we did enough to win the game. 5-0 on aggregate was pleasing.

We created way more chances, and bossed the game. They sat back and it was hard to find the way through.

New Records

We have had a great run this year in the Champions League.

Lavat has hit the 20 goal mark, breaking Rafiq Nene’s total from last campaign. Given the number of games to go this season, thirty goals is not an unreasonable target.

ABSA Premiership – Match 18/30

This game promises to be a good match. Celtic are sitting in second place, three points ahead of us but we have three games in hand.

Fielding a near full strength side, a few who are fatigued but will make it through the game.

It’s going to be a good game today. I feel we have enough to edge it, but it will be tight.

As predicted it was a humdinger of a game. Celtic got the early lead and in a half where both sides cancelled each other out it two moments of brilliance to earn the lead. A goal each in the second half was enough for Cosmos to run out winners.

The stats back up the evenness of the contest. We absolutely destroyed their left back who had a shocker.

ABSA Premiership – Match 19/30

SuperSport have been our nemesis and it is time to mark paid on their bill! These guys are great at closing out a game, so it is important that we do the hard yards early.

Grigorjevs and Radzi are due a break, however I need them for one more game. Lavet comes back to lead the line, while Maieco spells Tseka.

We should be favoured to win this match, although we have fallen short against this side in the past.

We put in a top performance and looked comfortable in this match. A late goal each provided some edge to a tight match. In the end we did what we needed and bagged all three points.

A solid performance had us ahead on most categories.

Match Summary

Seven from seven for this period, including the CAF Super Cup. I am please with this issue.

League Table

Second place again. We play Kaizer Chiefs in the last game of the season, and it may come down to that match being for all the marbles.

Next Episode

We have the Black Aces in the Cup and Old Edwardians from Sierra Leone in the Champions League. We have also scheduled five of the remaining ten league games, although this is subject to other competitions.