Simba Bhora coach Tonderai Ndiraya said that his players got overexcited after scoring first against FC Platinum, resulting in their 1-2 at the National Sports Stadium on Saturday.
Ronald Chitiyo scored for the Premiership debutants in the 52nd minute before the man of the match Juan Mutuza scored two headers in the final 10 minutes to give FC Platinum the win.
In his post-match interview, Ndiraya said his players failed to convert the few opportunities they created in the first half. He said:
It’s an issue of concentration, they got overexcited (after taking the lead) and in the end, we dropped all the points at home and I’m very disappointed.
We had done our research on FC Platinum pretty well, and I thought we had done well.
We got some opportunities, which is very rare when you play against the champions.
We were just supposed to take the few opportunities we created in the first half.
We were very solid in the first half, I thought the game was balanced and in the second half, as I said, it was an issue of concentration.
Maybe it was because we scored a bit too early, but that’s when we lost it.
We failed to close down the passing lanes, and the introduction of Walter (Musona) and Perfect (Chikwende) brought in a lot of experience.
FC Platinum coach Norman Mapeza said it was crucial to accumulate points at the start of the season. He said:
I was not going to be disappointed by a draw; it’s the first game of the season and we had a difficult game last week.
It is early days but we have to keep working hard. This is a massive win.
I spoke with the players in the morning and we know we are going to have some difficult games in the early stages and it is very important that we get the wins.
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