Baroka, City suffer defeat in Diski Challenge

There was little to celebrate at Seshego Stadium on Sunday when supporters of Polokwane City Football Club and Baroka Football Club had to watch the clubs’ reserve teams being defeated by Kaizer Chiefs (Amakhosi) and Mamelodi Sundowns reserve teams in their Multichoice Diski Challenge matches.
The two local clubs needed to win their matches in order to move up in the log but failed in their task.
Baroka was thrashed 2-0 by reigning champions, Sundowns in the first match of the challenge while City suffered the same score line at the hands of Kaizer Chiefs in the last match of the day.
The defeat leaves Baroka in ninth position of the challenge with 16 points after 12 matches while City remains in tenth position with 15 points.
Machete Bayano Moloto, head coach for Polokwane City Football Club expressed his disappointment with the loss and stressed that the team could have doubled their effort to win the match. “We played badly today, it was not our day and we did not play according to instructions or the plan. We know Chiefs and we know how they play. We knew they were going to tackle hard and get goals. We told our players to focus on those elements but they did not,” Moloto said.
Despite this loss, Moloto remains adamant that they will get maximum points in the last three remaining matches of the challenge. “We are going to meet with the players during the week and discuss how we can improve our game. We had a target to collect 18 points and these 18 points were hopefully perhaps going to give us position two on the log or a chance fight for position one. I think all is not lost, we just have to focus on the top 8,” Moloto said.
Thoka Matsimela, head coach of Baroka said he was impressed with the display shown by his charges despite the loss. “I can’t complain much. We were playing against the best team, a very balanced team with experienced players. I was very impressed with how my boys played. They played like they have experience but you can see most of them are still young and they are still learning so I am very impressed with their overall performance,” Matsimela said.

Story and photos: Herbert Rachuene
>>herbert.observer@gmail.com