Big blow for LDF

MASERU – Lesotho Defence Force’s (LDF) Vodacom Premier League title hopes suffered a massive blow when they fell to a 2-1 defeat to ten-man Matlama yesterday afternoon at Ratjomose.

The loss is especially painful because ‘Sohle-Sohle’ failed to capitalise on Bantu’s slip-up on Sunday when the leaders surprisingly lost 1-0 to Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS).

LDF remain five points behind Bantu with nine games to play and their grief was evident as they watched a golden chance slip through their fingers.

It was opposite emotions on the opposing bench as Matlama fought their way to a sixth win a row which lifted the reigning champions into third place with 41 points.

With the gap to Bantu suddenly down to eight points, can Matlama dream of defending their crown?

For yesterday at least they looked like a championship team as goals from Lazola Jokojokwane and Jane Thabantšo sealed the deal and gave ‘Tse Putsoa’ maximum points.

Matlama started the game slowly and were dominated by the home side for the entire first half and were lucky to go to the half time break without conceding.

The visitors came back better in the second half and their first real attack nearly ended in a goal when a scramble in LDF’s penalty box resulted in four successive corners for the visitors.

LDF were eventually able to clear the ball but it wasn’t long before Jokojokwane gave Matlama the lead in the 57th minute, a minute in which LDF’s defence seemed to be all over the place with no player aware where their opponents were.

With 20 minutes to go, Matlama were reduced to ten men when Rethabile Mokokoane was shown a straight red card for handling the ball on the goal-line which denied LDF an obvious goal.

Retšelisitsoe Mopeli levelled matters from the spot and, with a numerical advantage, LDF grew in confidence and started searching for a winning goal.

However, Matlama had the last laugh when Thabantšo tested Likano Mphuthi with a sublime strike from 20 yards out and the former Likuena goalkeeper was not even able to get close to it.

It was a goal worthy of winning any match and from there ‘Tse Putsoa’ had the easiest job of defending their goal. Even though they were a man down, it looked as if the game could be played the entire day and LDF would still not find a goal.

At the end of the game, Matlama head coach Halemakale Mahlaha was full of praises for his players saying the victory will give them confidence going into the weekend’s game against Liphakoe.

“In terms of our style of play we tried, I think a lot happened that affected us, one of them is the condition of the field, the grass was long and it appears it was their strategy (to make the grass long) but our players worked hard to adjust to the conditions,” Mahlaha said.

“We did expect LDF to come with everything they’ve got, we are behind them on the log, so we prepared for them,” he said.

“We managed to score two goals and resist and defend what we had, we also prepared our style of play because LDF struggle against us but we didn’t execute our gameplan the way we wanted,” the Matlama mentor added.

“The most important thing is that they are strong mentally because in any condition they are able to bring results, we played one man down,” Mahlaha said.Yesterday’s results:
Linare 6-0 Naughty Boys
LDF 1-2 Matlama
Liphakoe 1-1 LCSWeekend fixtures:
Saturday (15:00)
Liphakoe vs. Matlama (LCS Ground)
Lijabatho vs. Lioli (Morija)
Manonyane vs. CCX (Nyakosoba)
Swallows vs. Linare (Morija)
Sunday (15:00)
Machoka vs. LDF (LCS 13:00)
LCS vs. Lifofane (LCS 15:00)
LMPS vs. Galaxy (PTC Ground)
Bantu vs. Naughty Boys (DIFA Mohale’s Hoek)

Vodacom Premier League table:

		P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	PTS
1	Bantu	21	15	4	2	39	9	+30	49
2	LDF	21	13	5	3	34	12	+22	44
3	Matlama	21	12	5	4	32	16	+16	41
4	LCS	21	11	7	3	41	13	+28	40
5	Linare	20	11	6	3	27	10	+17	39
6	LMPS	21	10	7	4	22	10	+12	37
7	Lijabatho	21	9	7	5	23	11	+12	34
8	Machokha	21	8	6	7	23	30	-7	30
9	Liphakoe	21	6	6	9	21	29	-8	24
10	Lioli	21	5	8	8	13	17	-4	23
11	Manonyane	21	5	7	9	17	22	-5	22
12	Lifofane	20	4	9	7	15	19	-4	21
13	Naughty Boys	21	4	2	15	15	53	-38	14
14	Swallows	21	3	4	14	13	38	-25	13
15	CCX	21	3	4	14	13	40	-27	13
16	Galaxy	21	2	5	14	12	30	-18	11

Tlalane Phahla