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JOHANNESBURG. — Khama Billiat says he had to move his game a step up on Tuesday night to outwit familiar faces in Bafana Bafana as Zimbabwe ran out winners in the latest battle between Cosafa’s fiercest rivals.
The Mamelodi Sundowns attacker was named Man-of-the-match after running rings around the Bafana defence and though he was coming up against players that he is well acquainted with, he said he had to dig deep to make the difference.
Both Bafana and the Warriors fielded starting line-ups that were dominated by South African Premiership players, with just four of the 22 that started not plying their trade in the local league.
“It is always hard playing against people that you know because it means you have to push your game up to a level higher than that they know of,” he told KickOff.com.
“That is what I tried to do and I’m glad the extra effort helped my country to victory.”
Billiat said that their game-plan made the difference last night and he wasn’t surprised to see Knowledge Musona slam home a beautiful goal.
The Warriors were in firm control of this battle for most of the match with Billiat enjoying a telepathic partnership with close friend Musona.
“It was a team effort helped by the fact that our game-plan came together. We managed to make them play outside (wide) because we know how good (Reneilwe) Letsholonyane and (Hlompo) Kekana are through the middle.
“They (Bafana) were okay. They were playing well but we converted our chances and that was a good goal from Knowledge . . . he is always needed and we know that he can score goals at any time because he is a special player.
“Kingston (Nkhatha) also showed his experience by not being greedy in providing the second goal. It is a team effort that counts at the end of the day because what matters is that we play together.”
Meanwhile, Itumeleng Khune has defended his Bafana Bafana teammates — and coach Gordon Igesund — after a disappointing performance against Zimbabwe.
Igesund made 10 changes to the side that beat Botswana 4-1, with all international and Orlando Pirates players being released, apart from Darren Keet, who made his debut, and Kermit Erasmus, who came on in the second half.
“If the crop of these players can be together until the 2018 World Cup I think we will do better than we have done in the past,” Khune said.
“We could have done better but things didn’t go our way because we didn’t spend enough time together. The coach couldn’t do what he wanted to do and he couldn’t get what he wanted to get out of us as players.
“If the coach had a week or two working with the team from yesterday you could have seen a different Bafana with a different result.”
Khune also pointed out that Zimbabwe are currently a force to be reckoned with, with big-name PSL players such as Malajila, Musona and Khama Billiat, who showed their class at Orlando Stadium.
“We can’t think that ‘Zimbabwe, it’s just Zimbabwe’ — people still have that perception . . . they don’t think, how many players do they have in our country, playing for big clubs? If we had brought our European players to come and take part in last night’s game I think we could have seen a different ball-game.” — Kickoff.com.
Online Reporter