Soweto Derby: Post-Game | 26 Apr 2026

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Full-time reaction and analysis after the Soweto Derby.

Summary

AI · transcript

The coach expresses disappointment with the game's physicality, stating that his players were targeted and that it felt more like karate than football. He believes a goal was wrongly disallowed and laments the missed opportunity to secure two points. He also discusses the team's struggle to convert chances and come back from deficits, attributing some of these issues to the opponent's aggressive playstyle and the need for his team to adapt to more physical games by playing quicker and smarter.

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Good evening everyone. About the game, I think we had the game that we expected. When I
saw the lineup, I knew directly that we will face a lot of duels, a lot of tough football
early in the middle. I think that in terms of duels, we lost that battle of fighting
in the middle. There are some games like that, unfortunately. I think sometimes it was even
a limit of the red line. I think sometimes that if we want to give nice football for
the fans and I think South African fans deserve it, when I see the quality of the organization
of one of the biggest derby in the world, I think we must protect the players who are
willing to play football. Because what I have seen today, I don't know if I have to say
that they have seen a football game or karate. I don't know how we call that today. I don't
want to miss respect or the sport, but today was not a football game. Everybody are willing
to play some nice football. There are some people that they have to protect as well the
players. When I saw that our three players, three players, ball players, Mofokeng, Apollis,
Moremi, were targeted not to take the ball in the rules, but to break the legs of the
players. This is something that I cannot accept in football. I think if I have to go
deep in the game, our first half was not what we want to achieve in terms of football. Because
of a team that came to not to play football, they come to destroy and to break the legs
of the players. This is what we have seen today. It's very sad for football. It's very sad
for a fantastic derby because people come to watch a fantastic football. At the half
time, we tried the me and my technical staff to make some tactical adjustment. Unfortunately,
we considered this goal in transition. It's normal because we are attacking team. We pushed,
we pushed to find some spaces between the lines and we finished by a cross with the
rebound from Mike and we managed to score. We pushed again, trying to score this second
goal. Unfortunately, we didn't. But I'd like to come back on one goal. I think I have to
see that the goal of Apollis is definitely on-site. So again, I never speak about the
referees. I don't like that because they are part of the game. They're helping the football.
But today, I think this goal definitely is a goal for Pilate.
Good evening.
Good evening.
You talk about your place being targeted in the game and country injuries and all that.
Would you perhaps say that the answers that happened before the game was an influence
to what happened on the game region?
To be honest, I'm sorry for that I was only focused on my team if you have seen me. I
was looking for the warm-up of the impact players and afterwards I went to see the players
who are going to start. I don't even question what happened. I didn't see and I will be
not honest to answer you because I didn't know what happened.
No, like I told you when I saw the names for sure, I saw directly that they didn't come
to build. They come to have a compact block. It was my idea to play in the transitions.
Especially when you see in Tetra and in the six, you see the other players, the two other
players in the middle and Lili Po as a nine. I was expecting a lot of duels. But I was
not expecting to destroy my players, to destroy the legs of the players. I was not expecting
that and my players need to be protected by somebody. They need to be protected by the
men in the middle because he has the rules for that.
If you come to show some nice football for the fans and to be creative, to play some
nice football that we had this season, trying to show, we don't come to destroy a realm
of again. We don't come to destroy Moremi that is gone now. I don't know how long it
is out. We don't come to destroy our police. I'm very sad tonight about that.
Next question, no, you're really looking at it. Yes, question? Anyone else have a opportunity
to ask? Please allow me to run the first conference. Thank you.
My name is Ananya. I'm a coach who created so many chances, I think you had proton shots
and eight on target. But you only scored, that's one goal. Was it an issue of finishing or
the players had qualms, decision-making in the final test or credit to the football
teams? I think you have the answer and your question.
We have to give credit to the keeper. I think he did a really good game. The most difficult
in football is to create chances. We've been creating a lot of chances this season. The
second answer is we create a lot of chances, but we were not efficient in the last four.
Good evening. Good evening. In the second round of the season, your team has been not
frequently, but a lot of times accused of not being able to come back after a concealing
first. The same thing happened again today and you couldn't turn the game around essentially
a bit. What do you think has been the struggle there? Why haven't you been able to turn those
deficits into wins? I think you know, not only for us, I think if you look at the majority
of the statistics in the world, the first team whose score have a lot of chance to win
the game. I think many times this season we have considered the early and my boys did
the best of themselves in terms of personality, in terms of character to come back. When you
consider goal, you need to take risk, to leave some space, to create chances. It's what
we did. I think we have to give them credit for that to equalize. I think if the game
went a little bit further, maybe we could have scored and I have seen a lot of players
of Kazechif going down. I cannot say that they were tired or just winning time because
it seems like the draw was a fantastic result for them for such big club. I think they should
be disappointed like us, you know, because tonight I have the feeling that we lost two
points and I think them as well, they should have this feeling, but I saw that they were
very happy with one point. Interesting, of course. Yeah. Of course you spoke
about the U.S. and now I'm just waiting back to the up point. There was a feeling and especially
after being against that something has got everything right. Maybe when it comes to
physical strength and element and I would go back also to some of the issues that you
made when you paid against the global. I'm not 100% agree with you, but I am 1,000%
agree with you. Modern football sometimes you have to adapt about this physicality
and you give exactly the right games. When you are going out of the country, the topology
or the kind of football you can play out of the country, sometimes it's different and
you have to adapt and if you can see the season, while some games where we were a little bit
in trouble, it's where we had this physicality, dual physicality, you take Richard's Bay,
Sewelele again today and to avoid that, to avoid that, if you don't have the physicality,
I mean to answer to that. The answer is to play quick, to move the ball, to be mobile
in the middle, to be very efficient in the scanning, in the way that you are taking the
information and to know what are you going to do before receiving the ball. I don't know
if you understand me, but this is very important for the kind of player that you have, to avoid
to be kicked, you need to live the ball a little bit and not to go, to make too much
touches in the area where there is density, it's crowded because for sure the teams don't
have the quality like you, they will kick you. So maybe today it's what we felt in the
middle, maybe to give the ball a little bit quicker in the middle and to look for some
combination, quick combination, to go forward, to look for the third man running in the last
third, but when you want to touch too much the ball in the density, you can face this
kind of kicks that we received today.
Good evening. Good evening. You mentioned that you're opening as you said three players
who were kicked about, what did you then make of the referee's performance? Do you feel
that they may have been a red card, why is he shooting it, protecting all players from
being kicked? And also you brought the two points as you say, I mean, what does this
mean for the athletes?
Sorry about your first question. I think you know me, now since I came in South Africa,
I was with Marumo before, now with the pirate. I never criticized the referees, they are
part of the job, they are with us. It's not easy, it's not easy to be in the middle, just
to tell you what, because when I passed my parole license, you have one module that you
have to be referee, and I can tell you that a lot of coaches, it was so difficult for them.
So I understand the speed of the game, sometimes they cannot see. So you will not catch me in
that sense to criticize the referees, but just to say that I think the goal of Apple was
valid today. That's it. And what the other question was about the...
A drop in two points, what does it do to the title?
Yeah, look, I still didn't see the other results. I don't know, let's wait for the other results,
and if it's a draw, the show must go on, you know, and we have to play until, like I said,
this game, last minute, last second, and we are here, I know.
We'll take the final three questions, please limit yourselves to one question at a time.
We'll come in here, and then take the two, then, in the middle.
Good evening. Good evening.
Thank you.
Yeah, it really impacted our game because, you know, this boy has been very important
in our system since the beginning. If you see the average or the percentage of the goals
that we scored or the assist is part of that, and the speed that he brings us is very important.
But in the same time, it can happen, you know, it can happen that he can be injured, not
like that, because today, today it was not football much, it was boxing, but I think it
can happen, the injury can happen, that we need to have a solution on the bench with
the impact players, and we had just to modify our philosophy, maybe to bring somebody who
can be more available between the lines, just we don't have this speed, but we bring another
player who is able, maybe, to combinate in the heart of the game and to give assist.
So we make some distances with Tito, with Tito, I will not remind you the quality of the player,
with somebody who has a lot of creativity, and he did well when he came, you know, but
it can happen, but not in that way.
Good evening. You've been in the game, it's been a really good form over the past couple of weeks, 9, 9 days until your next game. You see as a positive, you welcome the short play to work with the players, or he's here for something that's a negative because of how good a form that he's being.
Well, you know, you know, I always say to my boys that they've been doing a fantastic job, you know, these guys, they start since July, if you can just calculate the amount of the days of training, intense training, I don't count the national team's
players because it's more games, they've been doing well, and I'm very proud of them, I'm very proud of them.
But yeah, we have 9, 10 days, the most important now, I think it's to give them some rest because they are not robot, they are not robot, they are human, and the body need to rest, especially when you see the efforts that they are giving
there in all the pace, the speed, football that we are playing, it's demanding, so we need to give them some rest.
And after straight away, we will come back to the business, we are going to analyze that game, what went well, what went wrong in order to improve them, because I can guarantee you that the last games
we are going to play 1,000% and focus with the same pace, with the same motivation, with the same commitment, and we are going to play until the end that this league, you know, and after at the end we'll sit
and we'll make the feedback, we'll analyze everything, but what's something that I can tell you straight away now, even we don't know what will happen at the end of the season.
I'm very proud to be the coach of these guys, they were fantastic this season.
Coach, good evening. Good evening.
Good evening. Coach, as I've just said now, you may give the players a break, but just before giving them a break, I have to bring this drill while they are home, so they are very high for winning the league, what's your message to them?
The message that I want to give them is that you have a coach that loves all his players, that gives the best respect for his players, and especially when you have been a player, you know, the amount of efforts,
the amount of work, the concentration, the demand in such a game with the pressure, you know, with the willing to give happiness to the fans, and to give joy to everybody with a huge pressure, you have to understand that, you know, when you are playing.
It's not a normal life, you know, especially in the area of the digital, of the social network, it's not easy for a player, because you are all the time judged, you are good, you are not good, you know, the player, the fans can be happy about your performance, they can be disappointed, and they are reading all these things.
So what I want to tell them that I am very proud of them, again, they tried their best today, front of 90,000 people, so yeah, to keep going, to trust themselves, football is not easy, it's like life, sometimes life is here, but then after you drop a little bit because the mood is not good, but you have to find the resources, to find the vitamin, to find good energy,
to bounce back, and it's what we are going to do, and we are going to fight until the end.