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Makomborero Mutimukulu in S’fax, TUNISIA
Caps United coach, Lloyd Chitembwe, was so shocked by his team’s poor defensive show in their Caf Champions League battle against Libyan team Al Ahli Tripoli here on Wednesday night that he didn’t turn up for dinner or breakfast yesterday.

The Green Machine collapsed like a deck of cards in the second half, conceding three goals, to surrender a 2-1 first half lead their strong performance had merited.

The Harare giants could even have scored about half-a-dozen goals in that first half with a number of chances being blown.

But they went to the break in the driving seat, having silenced the vociferous Libyan fans, with Ronald “Rooney” Chitiyo scoring his fourth goal of the campaign to push them into the lead.

However, it was a poor Caps United that came back from the break, tormented by poor defending in which their entire defensive cast, including goalkeeper Edmore Sibanda, was at fault.

In fact, there is a feeling within the Green Machine that Sibanda is no longer pushing himself to do even better, comforted by the fact that he is the club’s number one, and noone is challenging him for that position.

The big keeper was at fault when Caps United conceded in Lubumbashi against TP Mazembe and was at fault again in this game, choosing to remain rooted to his spot when crosses were passed into the area, rather than rush out to punch the ball away given his advantage.

He was also at fault in one of the goals that Zamalek scored in Alexandria against Caps United in this Champions League.

“I am very disappointed, we had a very strong start in the first half,’’ said Chitembwe.

“It’s never easy to score two goals away at this level of the game and after leading 2-1 you should kill off the game.

“I thought it was down to lack of effort, lack of exposure, we lacked the necessary experience and I told the players what I feel after the game, very, very disappointed.

“In the second half, some of these boys were overwhelmed, I’m very, very disappointed. You can’t expect to score seven or eight, we were very, very erratic, mistakes in very, very crucial areas and you will be punished, sometimes you get get away with it at home but against this kind of opponents you’will be punished.’’

He said it was the worst performance, defensively, he has seen from his men.

“Honestly speaking, I have never seen my team play as badly as we did today, conceding goals the way we conceded, very, very disappointing to see, it goes down to lack of effort.

“This is what experience can bring to the team and I am sure we lacked the experience to manage the game and I am very, very disappointed. When you score two goals at this level you expect better, to kill off the game, to manage the game and unfortunately that was not the case with us, players failing to apply the basic principles of defending, players failing in attack.’’

The coach said he believed his men had done the hard part to come back from a goal down and show character to take the lead and silence the crowd.

But, he said, he was shocked by the way they gave everything away in the second half after having worked hard to put themselves in a position to win the crucial game.

Chitembwe said he was so hurt that, after they had held their own in that first half, they didn’t show any improvement and generate confidence from the first 45 minutes where they had shown themselves they could either match or beat their opponents.

“It’s not about the race (Champions League), as long as we are still in football we want to compete and do well,’’ said Chitembwe.

‘’It’s not about the race but the improvement that we want to see in the team. I think that is what is critical.

“The whole idea is to see those improvements. I don’t want to see such kind of performance being repeated.’’

Caps United, though, are still in the race and should they win their remaining two games against Zamalek (home) and USM Alger (away), they could even sneak into the quarter-finals.

Zamalek crashed to a 0-2 defeat at the hands of USM Alger and now visit Harare next for a game that Makepekepe badly need to win to keep their slim hopes alive.