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Kaitano Tembo

FOLLOWING his side’s 2-2 draw against Kaizer Chiefs in the first leg of their MTN8 semi-final yesterday, SuperSport United coach Kaitano Tembo admits he is not happy.

Some poor defending in the opening half saw SuperSport United go behind after a Khama Billiat goal in the 19th minute before Bradley Grobler levelled matters five minutes later.

The side from Tshwane then took the lead just before the break, but again some sloppy defending at the start of the second half cost Tembo’s team the win as Leonardo Castro equalised.

“I think we played well, but I am not happy with our defending. I think we were more worried about Khama’s pace and we kept dropping too defensively,” Tembo told SuperSport.

“Sometimes we were supposed to track and release. We kept on tracking. He is a very intelligent player; he can identify the spaces that he can run into.

“But I think in terms of our overall performance we played well. We scored two good goals, Bradley did well.

“At half time I emphasised on the pace, but we were dropping at the wrong time. On the second goal, we should have stepped up and gone to the ball and pressed the ball. We didn’t do that. Our lines were also zig-zagged.

“At the same time though the boys tried hard, they worked very hard. Credit to them.”

Tembo added that the fight for a spot in the final is not over and they will give everything to gain victory in the second leg of the MTN8 semi-final.

“The fight is still on, we are still going to go there and fight. It is not over yet.

“We played better in the first half. We did have a good start, but we played well. Scored two goals. In the second half we didn’t have a good start when they had the equaliser so early in the game and I think it killed us a little bit.

“Kaizer Chiefs played well. They worked well together. They fought hard. I think we will give the fans a good game in the second leg.

“I think we scored two goals which is important, we will take that and still work a bit in our defence but in our overall performance we did well.” — Soccer Laduma