Their chances of making the Varsity Football play-offs may be gone, but UCT will give it their best to the end.
The bottom-placed Ikeys knew that Monday’s game against log leaders TUT would not be an easy game, but the gents from the Mother City put up a good fight.
There’s no doubt that UCT experienced a worrying first 20 minutes, however the team pulled it together and carried on fighting for that elusive second goal of the tournament.
Justin Alberti, UCT’s striker for the evening, had a good game despite having just returned from injury.
Alberti believes the team did well since most people expected UCT to lose badly against a strong TUT outfit.
He said: “It’s difficult to say we played well when looking at the scoreline, but when we analyse the game it’s so frustrating seeing how we concede silly goals, especially set pieces, which we have traditionally been good at.”
Those first 20 minutes were disastrous for UCT.
“We lost the game because of those first 20 minutes, not in the entire 90 minutes,” said Alberti.
He believes that UCT’s performance in Tshwane was frustrating, because he knows the team can play better and some great chances were missed.
The end of the first half and second half saw far better play from UCT. Lwazi Maziya scored their second goal of the tournament, much to the delight of the UCT team and fans at home.
UCT’s second half showed that the can play against the best. The cross-bar was hit on more than one occasion and a couple of good saves were forced out of TUT goalkeeper Kgosietsile Ndlovu.
Despite the on-going disappointment, all is not lost. Young striker, Mwansa Chalwe said he believes that in spite of the final results not going UCT’s way, the team’s performance has shown their continual development and improvement.
Even though it might not show in the Varsity Football tournament, improvement is evident in their recent USSA results.
Next week, UCT travel to Mafikeng to challenge third-placed NWU.
By Julia Cassar
