Maela apologises to Pirates fans for his costly blunder

Innocent Maela has sent out an apology to Orlando Pirates supporters following his blunder, which gifted Black Leopards their first goal in their 2-0 loss to the Limpopo outfit at the Thohoyandou Stadium last Sunday.

It was probably one of those games he wishes to erase from his memory forever, but this is something that will linger in the minds of the Buccaneers fans for a long time.

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The Bafana Bafana left-back had just almost scored an own goal after heading the ball into the left side cross of Wayne Sandilands at Bucs goals just after 25 minutes of play.

And shortly after that from the resultant corner, Maela tried to make another heading clearance, which unfortunately went inside the net in the 29^th minute.

That goal gave Leopards the lead and an upper hand in the game, which saw the home side clawed their way more into the Bucs box.

“I apologise Buccaneers. We promise to be better,” the left-back wrote on his social media account.

With only about five minutes left to half-time, Leopards struck again. This time around, the visitors launched a quick counter-attack led by veteran striker Ramagalela, who couldn’t finish from the first attempt.

However, he passed the ball to Ovidy Karuru, who laid it beautifully with a back-heel for Rodrick Kabawe, who made no mistake and sent a powerful shot past Sandilands to make it 2-0 for Lidoda Duvha.

The loss was a huge disappointment for Bucs, with the team looking like they have finally found their mojo when they recorded a 3-0 win over Tshakuma Tsha Madzivhandila a couple of days before the Leopards match at the same venue.

Pirates have only been able to win four of their last 11 league games while playing five draws and losing two games placing them in the fifth spot on the league standings.

Maela and his teammates will be keen to rectify their errors when they host KwaZulu-Natal outfit Golden Arrows at the Orlando Stadium on Wednesday.

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