Mascom Top 8 Review

Gaborone United and Jwaneng Galaxy booked their places in this season’s Mascom Top 8 final billed for March 9th in Francistown. Gazette Sport shares the thoughts of the two winning coaches and their ambitions of winning the lucrative P1.3 miilion grand prize.
GU had to put up a brave fight to turn around their 2-0 first leg loss against Township Rollers to advance through to the next round of the competition 10-9 on penalties. The game had ended 3-3 on aggregate. On Sunday Tebogo Sembowa’s first half brace for Galaxy ensured that the mining town side emerge victorious against BDF XI in Lobatse. Keagile Kobe managed to pull one back but it was a case of ‘too little too late’ for Matebele as the game finished 3-1 on aggregate.
Rollers dominance had to end – Makhwengwe
Gaborone United coach Philimon Makhwengwe told the media that he was more than confident going into the game that his side will beat Rollers and progress to the final of the tournament. He said prior to the game Rollers tried spying on his team’s preparations but they remained unfazed.
“We had seen them in the first leg and we knew where and how to hurt them. When you press them hard they panic and that is simply what we did. I told my players that we had to score two and if they scored we had to make three and its exactly what we did,” said the GU coach.
“During the week, they came to our training to watch us, but we just didn’t care, we had our plan and we stuck to it. For the sake of football, someone had to stop them (Rollers). Their dominance had to be ended. They have represented the country well in Africa and we happy with what they have done.”
Makhwengwe also went on to state his desire to win the Top 8 and return the glory days at GU.
“This won’t be my first cup final, i have been there before and i know what is needed to win in games of such kind. I wont lie, i want to win it (Top 8), for me as a coach it is a cup i have never won, and i want it. I am not going to be disrespectful to any team, but whoever comes we will be ready and they must know too that we want this cup,” ended the former BFA coaching instructor.
We want a double – Da Costa
Jwaneng Galaxy coach Miguel Da Costa says reaching the finals of the Top 8 presents a perfect opportunity for his team to reach their 2018/19 season objectives. The former Vipers (Uganda top flight side) coach, who was appointed in August 2018 has been tasked with winning the Mascom Top 8 and BTC Premiership.
He said he was never worried about BDF XI causing any troubles for them as his team knows how to win when and where it matters most.
“It was a tough match, but we as a team knew how to make it easy. We scored two goals early in the match and we knew that it was going to put even more pressure on them and it’s what we did. Second half was only matter of controlling the match more so that they had to score three goals or more, which i think was never going to be possible,” said Da Costa.
“We could have scored even more goals, but on the day we are happy that we have reached the finals, which was one of the things we had proposed ourselves to do when the season started. We will try as much as possible to try and enjoy ourselves in the finals. The game will be a totally different ball game, different pitch and different emotions, but we want to win it. We want to win both the league and Top 8.”