In the wake of a stinging 4-0 defeat to Marumo Gallants, Stellenbosch FC’s head coach, Steve Barker, has emphasised the urgent need for his squad to move on from their heaviest defeat of the season.
Wednesday evening’s Carling Knockout quarter-final in Bloemfontein, marred by torrential rain, proved a challenging affair for the Winelands side. Still, Barker remains adamant that re-energising quickly is essential as they gear up for a crucial away fixture against TS Galaxy, in Mbombela, on Sunday.
“The important part is to get over this game as quickly as possible, learn from it and take the positives out of the previous two matches,” said Barker, adding: “There were some positives, while in some areas we weren’t good enough.
“We are going to get challenges. We’re going to get roadblocks like we did against Gallants. We are going to lose football games; we don’t have a divine right to win every match we play.”
Barker congratulated Gallants and wished them well in the semi-finals. He said Gallants took their opportunities well.
However, Barker also felt his team suffered bad luck in the game.
“Sometimes, in football matches, all your bad luck comes in one game,” said Barker.
“If we analysed the game, in the first half, I thought we were the better team. We created a lot of turnovers in their defensive third. From the build-up play, we put a lot of pressure on them. We just weren’t clinical enough, and we didn’t take those opportunities after we got into the final third several times.
“It was the last delivery, the last pass and execution let us down for us to get the goal that we probably deserved, especially in that first 30-35 minutes.
“Looking back, it seems like their first goal was from an offside position and a little bit of fortuitous.”
Barker felt a potential penalty on his winger, Chumani Butsaka, was not awarded in the first half.
After trailing 1-0 at halftime, Barker was confident his charges would overcome the first-half setback.
“I came in at halftime confident that we could come out in the second half and get the equalising goal,” said Barker.
“Hopefully, if we had done that, we could have gone on to win the game, but conceding in the manner we did 10 minutes in the second half made our job a lot more difficult.
“In the game, we tried to fight our way back. However, we got caught on transitions, which we didn’t manage well.
“There are many lessons to learn before the next two important league games.”
At Wednesday’s post-match presser, Barker played down the heavy fixture load that players had to contend with.
“I don’t think fixture congestion has got anything to do with it (the heavy defeat). There is a bit of travel, which has been a lot over the last couple of weeks,” said Barker.
“It’s vital that we manage it and we embrace it (heavy workload). We don’t see it as a difficulty, but as a team performing well on the continent and in cup competitions.
“We must not complain because we want to compete and go deep into them. We want to be playing on the continent, so we mustn’t wish for something, and then when we have it, complain about it.”
