Kovsies humbled with semifinal spot

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Kovsies humbled with semifinal spot

LEE KHOTLELE

Bloemfontein – The University of the Free State football team captain, Themba Zimo, says although the team is disappointed with the semifinal exit, they are thrilled to have reached the knockout rounds this year.

The local side’s Varsity Football title aspirations suffered a drastic blow when they lost 3-1 on penalties (2-2 after regulation time) at the hands of the University of Johannesburg in the match played at the UJ Soweto Stadium on Monday evening.

Having finished the competition at the fifth spot last year, Kovsies were hoping for an improvement this year and Zimo said it was achieved.

Kovsies finished fourth on the log with 11 points after seven matches. However, Zimo said although not all the goals were achieved this year, the team had a solid season.

“It was a great season. We grew as players and as a team. We’re humbled to have been in the semifinal,” Zimo told Courant Sport.

“We’ve tremendously improved compared to last year; not only as far as the overall standings, but also in terms of the play and approach. We learnt a lot, and I’m happy with the season we had.”

The skipper said lack of concentration, which played a detrimental factor the last time the two sides met, continued even this time around, allowing the hosts to come from behind.

In their last meeting in the round robin stages in Bloemfontein, the two sides shared the spoils after playing to a 2-2 draw in the match the visitors twice came from behind.

“Even in the previous game against them, they managed to come back when we were 2-1 up and it was also the case last night.

“We struggled to work on our concentration for the entire 90 minutes, allowing them to come back to the game.”

“This has been the story of the team since the start of the competition. As the team, we struggle to work on our concentration and after taking the lead, we should be more compact.”

“However, we’re happy that we didn’t lose horribly. We can only take this as a learning experience going forward, because at the end of the day, truth be told, we weren’t outplayed.”

The midfielder, who missed his side’s last spot kick, explained that the team’s overall highlight of the competition was making it to the semifinals while the downfall was the 4-0 heavy loss to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

“After the loss, the support we got from the technical team and supporters was great. The loss encouraged the guys to keep going and continue doing well."

“For us to get to the semifinals, and lose out in the penalties after playing such a great game football, was great. So the come back from that NMMU game was another highlight,” he concluded.

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