VASCO DA GAMA VS GOLDEN ARROWS | NFD

Competition: NFD
Date: Wednesday,26 November 2014
Venue: Parow Park, Cape Town
Kick-off: 15:30pm

Abafana Bes’thende have played to a 1-1 draw with Vasco da Gama at Parow Park in their 12th NFD fixture this season.

The team came out and looked rather shaky in the first five minutes of the game, with Vasco coming at them at every opportunity. The boys settled in around 7 minutes in, and started retaining possession and passing the ball around, creating opportunities to score. The closest attempt came on a counter movement, when Mkhize won the ball, passed it to S.Sithole who crossed to N.Cele who headered the ball on target, but the da Gama keeper made an easy save.

The following 20 minutes of play was more of a midfield battle between the two teams, looking at making play and creating the opportunities needed to score. Then a sense of urgency to score before the half time whistle crept in, and both teams went on the attack. Golden Arrows managed to create two opportunities of set pieces, and had a shot at goal on both occasions, however, they were both just wide off target. Vasco da Gama similarly had opportunities, but could not finish off either and this saw the teams going into the changerooms at half time with no score on the board.

Lamontville Golden Arrows made their first tactical substitution at half time, with Hotto coming on for S.Sithole. Ten minutes into the half, it was Vasco da Gama who opened the scoring, after capitalising on an error made by Mathiane in the box, which saw them get the goal in the back of the net.

This urged Golden Arrows to look for opportunity and five minutes later they responded off the boot of Mkhize, after a set piece taken by Hotto played the ball in the box and Vasco’s goalkeeper fumbled, allowing the visitors to score an equaliser.
This increased the confidence of Golden Arrows and for 25 minutes, they bombarded the Vasco goal on three occasions, chances that if finished off, would have clearly won them the game.

This however, was not to be, and the game ended in a one-all draw.

Abafana Bes’thende will return home and regroup in preparation for their second Derby match of the season when they meet Thanda Royal Zulu at home on Sunday at 15h30. The team would love to get as much support into Chatsworth Stadium for this game to get behind them in their NFD campaign.