Maduka Defends Decision To Start With Mpisane Against AmaZulu ...
Royal AM coach John Maduka has protected the call to start with his chairman, Andile Mpisane against AmaZulu at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Friday, saying at some point he should be given a chance to start.
Mpisane started his first-ever game in the DStv Premiership but was involved in a first half that he and Royal AM would want to quickly forget, as Usuthu scored three goals before the break, with Mlondi Mbanjwa opening his account before Augustine Kwem netted twice to seal all three points.
Before the second half was about to start, Mpisane, who was playing in the number 10 role, was taken off and replaced by Sibusiso Magaqa.
At that point, Maduka was looking at stopping the bleeding as it was one-way traffic in the first half and Mpisane, on a couple of occasions lost the ball too easy.
“The chairman, it was his first game to play, to start the game,” said Maduka.
“The game-time is always difficult, and he had some chances to play [previously], and we had to give him a chance to play.”
Previously, Maduka had stated that Mpisane was training well, even though he looked overweight.
But there are signs that Mpisane has the football brain, showing some lovely touches on the ball, playing one exquisite pass in the first half with the inside of his foot, which was a long shot but it found his teammates.
There was a time also after Mxolisi Macuphu had a lunge-bursting run in the 40th minute when he cut back to Mpisane who was on the edge of the box but the chairman was unselfish and left it to Shaune Mogaila and Menzi Masuku, but the two were left confused on what to do and the chance was gone.
While it looked better in the second half for Royal AM and AmaZulu could not increase the scoreline, Maduka said they had to change things around and insisted he didn’t get the team selection wrong including the start of Mpisane, despite fans on X saying Royal AM appeared to be playing with 10 men on the field.
“As much as we made those changes, it’s not that we changed how we play,” elaborated Maduka.
“We still stuck to the way we played. The personnel that we introduced came right because it was the people that have been playing before. It was easy for them to adapt to the pace of the game, and we can’t say we got it wrong [in terms of selection].
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“If you analyse the game and you look at the goals, the goals that we conceded, it was our mistakes, and in professional football, teams wait for you to make mistakes and they punish you.”
Royal AM are blooding many youngsters into the team because they can’t sign players as they are serving a FIFA ban, which has seen players like Mpisane getting a chance to start.
