FC PLATINUM..................(0)1BULAWAYO CHIEFS.......(0)
FC PLATINUM coach Joel Luphahla heaved a huge sigh of relief after his side finally got it right, beating Bulawayo Chiefs in a Castle Lager Premier Soccer League match played at Mandava Stadium.
Ghanaian import Emmanuel Dogbey scored the goal that FC Platinum needed to end their winless streak, having endured three straight draws against FC Hunters, TelOne CC, and Highlanders FC.
However, they came into this one with so much energy to win and reduce pressure on themselves.
In the first half, they created a significant number of chances, but their strikers failed to hit the target. Garikai Dematsika and Trevor Bhunu missed chances that could have easily been converted in the 23rd minute and 44th minute, respectively. Meanwhile, Melikhaya Ncube, Zibusiso Dambo, and Jameson Masaza also missed good chances for the John Nyikadzino-led side.
It needed Dogbey's 75th-minute strike to break the deadlock for the home side. Even though Nyikadzino's side tried to come back, particularly with a continuous supply of crosses from Elvis Moyo's left channel, all efforts failed to breach Cameroonian goalie Manfred Ekoi.
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In his post match comments, Luphahla was full of praise for how his men have handled themselves under pressure to win.
"I think they gave us a difficult, difficult time today. But I think sometimes, as a team and also as a coach, you take the three points. And the performance was not so good from us.
"I think we managed to change things in the second half when we started to pile pressure. But we were fortunate not to go two or three nil in the first half.
"And I think sometimes you need to ride your luck. I think we rode our luck today. And also, I think our goalkeeper was good. So at the end of the day, we are happy with the three points.
"Happy that our fans are also rejoicing today because it was going to be a dreamy Easter. But on Friday, we didn't manage to get three points. And then we came at home after throwing a terrible last week. So I'm proud of the boys. I'm proud of the effort, playing three games in seven days is not easy for everybody," he said.
His counterpart, John Nyikadzino was short of words on how they lost a match that created a litany of clear cut chances.
"At times it's very difficult to explain how we failed to win this game. Four keepers to beat, very, very, very, very unexplainable. I can't explain how we missed those chances," Nyikadzino said.
"We had quite a number of clear-cut chances, even towards the end, under the bar, somebody's failing to convert such chances. Very difficult to explain. I think you can tell, very difficult to explain how we missed those chances.
"We couldn't utilize those chances. It's very difficult, very disappointing, I would say. We can do everything, but at this level, we failed to convert chances that come our way. It's very difficult to explain.
"In football, we have a lot of things to say, yeah, in transition we're bad, yeah, in defending we're bad, but we're bad in terms of converting. Of all those chances, six chances, I would say, that I counted, we have at least utilized two."