We will go all out in the 2nd leg – Coach
LETLHOGILE MPUANG
Botswana National Under 23 Assistant Coach Letang Kgengwenyane cited lack of concentration as the key reason why his side ended up on the losing end against Malawi in the U23 African Cup of Nations Qualifiers (AFCON) played over the weekend in Lobatse.
He however insists that they will go all out in the second leg as they look to remain in contention of qualifying for AFCON. With seven key players missing, who were called up to the senior national team, the Young Flames of Malawi proved too strong for the local boys as they managed to come back late from a goal down to win the game 2-1 away from home.
Mothusi Johnson was the scorer for the Young Zebras, while Hassan Kajoke and Gregory Nachipo did the damage for Malawi. All goals came in the second half. Speaking to the media after the game, Kgengwenyane admitted that they were completely clueless about their opponents which was one of the contributing factors to their loss.
“Our plan was to play the way we played in the second half, we wanted to get more goals. To be honest we threw it away in the first half. They were far better than us, they dominated the midfield because of the numbers they had in the middle of the park. We then tried to change things around, and we started using our wings, and that was when we started to play better, and that is how we were able to get our goal,” said the U23 Assistant Coach.
He added, “We lost it in the crucial moments, the last 10 minutes, we lost concentration in return we ended up giving away the two silly goals. We didn’t too much of these guys to be honest, but what we have seen here is that they like possessive football, and we expect them to be even better at home. It is now for us to counter their approach, we need to do a lot of counter pressing, so that we are able to press them high. We are 2-1 down, we have nothing to loss, when we arrive in Malawi we need to go all out and try and pull back the game,” he further said.
He also pointed out that some of their big players such as Mothusi Cooper, Mpho Kgomo and Malgas failed to come to the party on the day. “We failed to build up from the back, we also failed in our offensive transition, we failed right from the midfield, we had players like Cooper, Malgas and Mpho Kgomo who could not respond to playing direct football, they only good in playing possession football, which we failed to play on the day. Prior to the game we did try to get some information on this Malawi team, but we got nothing, and it also appeared that they had the same problem in getting information about us. What we got was that they had 7 players who were part of their Under 20 squad in 2016. We also tried a background check of the coach to understand where he is from and the type of football that he Powys, but only to find out that when he arrived here, he came with a different approach, something totally different to what we had anticipated. We also thought that with their key players away with national team, they would come here and try and seat back and get a draw, but that was never the case,” reiterated the BDF XI Assistant Coach. The two sides will meet again in this weekend for the second leg of the clash in Malawi.