An Open Letter to Roger De Sa Dear Roger Congratulations for getting to the final, in fact for managing to find ourselves in a position On Saturday the 2nd of November, at 20h00 the country and most of the continent came to a standstill. For 90 min, all eyes were fixed on Orlando Stadium to witness the efforts of a group of men, who found themselves with a unique opportunity to fulfil a lifelong dream which includes not only playing in a Africa Champions League final. But indeed become a part of a select group of Southern Africans who were actually crowned champions. After watching the match these are my impressions. When playing in a Champions League Final, you expect that the team you are going to be playing against will be exceptionally organised. Furthermore, if that team comes with the credentials of Al Ahly SC, then it is reasonable to expect that team to be defensively disciplined, transitionally astute and demonstrate attacking prowess that is far from predictable and antiquated. In a Champions League final you are up It is for that reason that it is almost pointless to plan to beat them on a counter, because this is Al Ahly, they are too organised for that. This is why in the early stages of the game Bacela would get the ball on transition, turn to face the Al Ahly goal and found he was facing four red shirts. On multiple occasions it looked like his teammates were late, but they were not late. Al Ahly was just too organised. When that does not work, your plan B cannot be that you shoot from range. Because if you are not hitting the target two out of three times, all you are doing is giving away possession. Besides Orlando Pirates FC plays in a league which I consider one of the most defensively organised in the world. People do not shoot from range often enough in the PSl, precisely because they just do not get the space to look up, look down, stretch their leg and then shoot as is the case in the EPL. If these players do not get to do this often enough in the league, it is very unreasonable to expect them to do that effectively in a Champions’ League final. As if that was not enough, your plan C was probably even worse. Sure they played with a compact flat four, and sure they were difficult to penetrate. And to make matters worse they were equal to the task in the air as well. Not once did we win anything in the air, and ye Defensively, I was even more perturbed. In a Champion’s League final one expects your centre back pair to have an understanding so flawless that it borders on telepathy. The reality is that Mahamutsa and Gcaba do not have that. This is why Jele found himself needing to tuck in to provide cover so often that Solimani was basically receiving the ball with acres of space on the right way too often. In fact at times Abutrika was passing the ball to his left without looking because there was just not enough pressure in that area. That right pocket in defence is a problem, and was like so even in the Soweto Derby. And the problem is not at right back, the problem is at centre back. And yes, understandably you would have loved to have Sangweni, but he is not available. However you have Lekgwathi as option on the bench. The understanding between him and Mahamutsa is far better, and he is older and level headed enough to keep the young ones calm in desperate times. All in all, I think your post match comments were telling. You said “my anxiety was that we did not know what we were going into the second leg with. Now the first leg is done, and we know what we are going in with - and now the planning starts.” Please don’t get me wrong. In all fairness we played well. We played Al Ahly and at no stage can we say we endured an onslaught. We contained them and they were on the back foot for most of the game. We managed to do that even when Myeni and Bacela were not giving us much for the most part. Why their substitution took so long, I will never understand. And yes, people can say, Al Ahly were being cautious and holding back because they were playing away. But their only goal came from a set piece and that disallowed goal came against the run of play. Not everybody can say that about their performance against such a classy team. My gripe is that we missed a major opportunity to run at them. OPFC’s strength is knocking the ball around, and in the early stage of the second half we showed glimpses of that kind of play. Slicing and dicing them through the middle. But we did not do enough of that. In fact we tried to dribble our way through the D-line. In my mind if you still played the short passes, and ensure that the target man eliminates the marker without the ball and received it on a return pass. We could have carved them open so as to allow our strikers to get clear chances creating their own acres of space. If we had done that long enough, at altitude, their legs would have worn (six players at 34 years of age?). I promise you, if that is our approach in the second leg, we can take this thing. We just need to be cautious at the back. They will be playing at home, and they will be coming at us. And if they do manage to find that early goal, they we will be in trouble, because if anybody thinks they parked the bus at the back on Saturday; in the second leg it will be a whole new level. Good luck, we are all behind The tempest prognosticator Via Themba Dikgale Follow:-Siphiweh_B_G
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 09:36:08 +0000
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