Durban - AmaZulu coach Benni McCarthy believes that miscommunication was his side’s downfall as they fell to a 1-0 loss to Raja Casablanca in their historic first ever CAF Champions League group stage game at the Stade Mohammed V Stadium on Saturday night.
“There was miscommunication in our defence in terms of clearing the ball and we allowed Raja in behind and they scored the all-important goal,” said McCarthy.
“I think we could have done better with our defending and I think we could have done better in front of goal. We didn’t really work the keeper too much. If you want to win football matches, you have to put the ball in the back of the net.”
AmaZulu were clearly second best on the day. They had just four shots at goal with none on target throughout the game. They never looked like scoring for the most part but did come very close to netting on the stroke of halftime as Makhehlene Makhaula’s shot struck the post following a breakaway.
While Raja dominated, the game was not easy for them as it took 67 minutes before they found their breakthrough goal via captain Mohsine Moutaoali.
McCarthy believes that the host team resorted to time-wasting tactics after taking the lead in order to preserve their advantage.
“When the chance to score comes and it does not happen and then you go and concede a few minutes later, it becomes a game of delaying tactics,” said McCarthy.
“Players will go down unnecessarily when they are not injured and that disturbs the rhythm. You don’t get situations where you can create chances because there is always a player down injured and it is stop-start, stop-start.“
Warming up for an experience that’s sure to go down in Usuthu history. Will you be joining us tonight as we take on @RCAofficiel? 😎#HebeUsuthu #UsuthuTogether#UsuthuCAFTakeover pic.twitter.com/KUBoCG8XOR
Overall, the result was not something that Usuthu should be too disappointed with. They are currently in their first season of Champions League football while Raja are an established continental side and also won the most recent edition of the CAF Confederation Cup last season.
“Overall it was a nice experience for us, a good first match and now we have got recovery to do. We will travel back to South Africa ahead of our next match. Hopefully we will take a lot of positives from this game into the next one and we will come good with a victory,” said McCarthy.
AmaZulu’s next game is another Champions League encounter as they host Horoya at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Friday night.