By ‘Mamohaila Rampo
MASERU
Representing the national team in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League preliminary round, Matlama suffered an irrefutable 3-0 defeat against Cameroon‘s Coton Sport FC at the Toyota stadium in Bloemfontein on Saturday.
Just before half time, Coton Sport had already scored one goal. The second and the third goals were scored within the second half of the match.
Unlike Matlama, Coton Sport is no stranger in the CAF championships and in 2018 they reached the final stages of the league even though they lost 4-2 against AL-Ahly of Egypt. The Cameroon team are the 16 times champions while Matlama are the 11th. However, Matlama have also not gone passed the preliminary stage of the champions league.
To determine which teams will go against one another, the draw was performed in the 9th August for the preliminary rounds of the 2022-2023 CAF champions league.
Matlama represented the national team at the games because they won the Vodacom Premier League champions in the last season, this tie had to be a home game for Matlama but since Setsoto Stadium was suspended in May last year by CAF for not meeting the set international standards and this led to international matches being played in South Africa.
In an interview with Informative Sports, Matlama Head Coach Mothobi said that his team still put on a competitive act but they also had their weaknesses. He said that they had a lot of opportunities to struck goals in the beginning of the game but they did not use them.
“They need to address the goals scoring issue,”Mothobi said. Even though they lost but three goals the players were still good in terms of defense. He said that not playing in the presence of the fans feels like the tie is an away-from-home game which also affects players.
