AmaZulu Head Coach, Benni McCarthy has praised the resilience of his team as they rescued a point at the hands of Bloemfontein Celtic at the Dr Molemela Stadium on Sunday afternoon in the DStv Premiership.
Although the match ended 1-1 it was Usuthu who started like a house on fire, despite Mangaung’s boiling temperatures that also came out to play on the day.
The coach said: “I think the conditions played a massive part, the heat was unbearable, the grass was long, we couldn’t move the ball the way we wanted to move it.”
McCarthy and his new look technical team have made it one win and one draw since joining the resurgent Usuthu led by President Sandile Zungu.
“Despite the challenge today (Celtic) you can see the structure the way we are starting to take shape, but it was three points lost for us. It was an opportunity that we are not going to get very often in this league.”
“The first 20/25 minutes of the game we were in cruise control, creating obvious goalscoring chances that we should have been probably been 3 or 4-0 up by the water break.”
“This is football, if we do not take our chances, if we do not finish the opposition off it is a problem. Then they got their goal from a set-piece, a free-kick, a nothing free-kick really and they go 1-0 up, they become a defensive team.
“We stuck to our game plan. We tried to break them down as we did when we were creating all the chances, so it was inevitable that was it was going to finish 1-0 and the game was coming to Celtic taking all the points.”
“I must give boys credit, the resilience, the persistence, and the way they worked was amazing. To score a goal after the quality that Mulenga did there, the individual brilliance and then we went 1-1 and still thought we could win it.”
“It is two games for me, 4 points, it is not a bad start. Now we turn our focus onto the midweek game against Kaizer Chiefs at home, but we take so many positives from this. We will try and do the same but the chances we create, we must put in the back of the net,” said McCarthy.
AmaZulu have collected 10 points in 9 outings in the DStv Premiership.
This week McCarthy’s men host Kaizer Chiefs on Wednesday and Maritzburg United on Saturday afternoon at the Jonsson Kings Park Stadium.
