Having made history by leading Marumo Gallants to the group stages of the CAF Confederation Cup, Dan Malesela has opened on the obstacles that the club has had to endure in the competition.
Malesela had been strongly linked with taking over as the head coach at Sekhukhune United before the club decided on Brandon Truter to succeed Kaitano Tembo, after the former Royal AM co-coach opted to continue with his impressive work at the Limpopo outfit.
Read: Pirates' Long-Term Plans For Talented Young Stars…
Speaking to the Siya crew, Malesela opened up on some of the tricks by their opponents in the Confederation Cup, and also explained how he motivated his players.
After losing 1-0 Al Ahli Tripoli in Libya earlier this month, Gallants came back strongly to secure a 3-0 victory at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium to qualify for the group stages of the competition.
"Well, sometimes the treatment is okay and in Libya the treatment was fine in the beginning and the problem only came when the match was underway and the firecrackers were thrown at the goalkeeper. When they realized that we were pressing to score, they did a lot of strange things. But you know, with the officials, this is one department I can't fix. It's got its own people to fix it. That's why I ended up saying to the team, let's play even though we were trailing 1-0 but play not to concede another goal. So, we ended up defending which is unlike us and I said I was almost sure that we would beat them when we played at home," said Malesela.
Read: Hunt Weighs In On Talk Of Fleurs To Chiefs
"But there were a lot of things that were done, the lasers, firecrackers and so on. At some stage, the players wanted to go out of the field and I also wanted them to go out of the field but I then said let's continue while we were 1-0 down and I was certain that we would beat them at home. But in the other match it was not so bad in Madagascar," the coach added.
You must be Sign In to read and post comments.
