Jwaneng Galaxy head coach Morena Ramoreboli has revealed how his side stopped Orlando Pirates’ main attacking threats to pull off a shock upset in the CAF Champions League.
Ramoreboli and his troops dashed Pirates’ Champions League group stage hopes after beating the Soweto giants 5-4 in the penalty shootout at the Orlando Stadium on Friday.
This is despite the Botswana Premier League champions not playing competitive football since June, with their season set to start in October.
Galaxy beat Pirates 1-0 in the first leg before losing 1-0 in Soweto with the tie ending 1-1 over two legs.
The South Africa-born coach said that his revealed that his team’s strategy was to contain Pirates‘ main attacking threat.
He also stated that Galaxy had practised penalties extensively, which paid off in the shootout.
RAMOREBOLI EXPLAINS HOW JWANENG GALAXY UPSET PIRATES
“We wanted to drop deep because we knew that they were gonna come at us, try to get those spaces behind them,” said Morena Ramoreboli.
“But to be honest, I think they were very disciplined in terms of dealing with our counter-attacking game because if you check, the [Paseka] Mako we usually see going forward and taking, he was very disciplined on the night.
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“The only side that was always overloading was the [Thabiso] Monyane side, which I think on that side we did not plant anybody because what we wanted to do, we thought Mako will come, and we wanted to deal with Monyane in our zone because it was difficult for us to deal with [Patrick] Maswanganyi and Monyane at the same time.
“So we had to allow one of them to have the ball and try to deal with the other one. I think we did not have that confidence we had when we were at home. “But it’s obvious, you are aware, you are leading 1-0, in the back of their minds is to say, ‘if we defend well, and the match ends with 0-0 we are going through’. Unfortunately, they managed to get a goal, and I think it unsettled us a bit.”