Marumo Gallants head coach Raymond Mdaka says they learned their lessons in Algeria to overcome USM Alger in a historic CAF Confederation Cup win on Wednesday afternoon.
Gallants moved to the summit of Group A in emphatic fashion with Lesiba Nku and Letsie Koapeng scoring at Dobsonville Stadium in a game played behind closed doors.
With nine points, they have beaten every team in the group but Mdaka admits their 2-0 loss in Algiers last week was a wake-up call on how to face the nine-time Algerian champions.
“We really wanted it because the two teams [Gallants and USMA] are the ones at the top, so losing this game would have made [qualification] difficult,” Mdaka said.
“So we spoke to the boys to say let’s go all out there [on the pitch] let’s work as hard as we can, and the only thing we need is three points which we got. Congratulations and thanks to the boys, they did very well.”
“I think the away game had a number of challenges, they played more direct, they did their homework, they never gave us time to play or allow us to keep the ball on the ground and create goals and scoring opportunities.
“So it made a little bit difficult [in Algeria], but the physicality they imposed on us, now that we knew them, [we handled it], they are good on set-pieces and even today they wanted to rely on that.”
With two points ahead of USMA and Al Akhdar, away in Libya and Saint Eloi Lupopo in South Africa as the final two games, they have one foot in the knockout stages.
With continental football being a reprieve of their heated relegation scrap back home, Mdaka revealed that nullifying their set-peice strenght was a major key to their massive three points.
“Today we were able to know this is how they attack their set-pieces, this is how we can close it down and the fact that we could keep the ball on the ground and play a bit, it gives us opportunities to create goal-scoring opportunities.
“If you look at the game, I think there were a few chances we could have converted into goals, it’s what we said and preaching to the boys, let’s keep the ball, let’s try to play going forward because that’s how we’re going to get goals.
“I think it all worked for us today, we forced them to play on the ground rather than direct and it made a difference and worked for us.”
