Knowledge still believes
Petros Kausiyo in CAIRO, EGYPT
KNOWLEDGE Musona is putting on a brave face amid the tsunami of criticism with the Warriors’ captain clearly disappointed by the outcome of their 2019 AFCON Group A clash against Uganda on Wednesday night in which his horror miss has been the dominant narrative.
The 29-year-old Belgium-based forward missed a golden chance to thrust the Warriors into the lead when, faced with a yawning goal after some good work by the impressive Ovidy Karuru down the right, he somehow connected his effort against the crossbar.
It’s difficult to imagine any other time, in his professional career, when Musona — who has been the heart and soul of these Warriors in the past decade — missed such a glorious chance. But, like a true Warrior, he isn’t giving up the fight.
“Yaa . . . I am not happy that we didn’t win, honestly, we could have won the game during the 90 minutes but we were not lucky in front of goal,’’ he said.
“We had some chances, clear-cut chances that we could have scored, especially the one that I missed and the one that Evans (Rusike) missed which the goalkeeper took away from the line.
‘’But, it is something that we are happy about that we created more scoring chances than the last game.’’
Musona said although they were aware that the DRC, whom they need to beat on Sunday night, have not won yet, they would go all out on the offensive against the Leopards.
“We expect a difficult game. It is not going to be easy we just have to keep playing the way we did and we just need to correct our mistakes especially the way we are finishing and we can do much, much better,’’ Musona said.
Musona’s glaring miss came off a cross by Karuru that was deflected to his path.
In the 68th minute, Rusike saw his point-blank effort cleared off the line beautifully by Mamelodi Sundowns ’keeper Denis Onyango after the initial save had slipped under his arms.
The Cranes had surged into the lead 11 minutes into the game when Emmanuel Okwi scored his second goal of the tournament with a tap-in from close-range after George Chigova spilled a shot from Abdu Lumala.
But that goal seemed to have galvanised the Warriors who pegged their opponents for most of the half.
In the 22nd minute, Musona had a chance when he was picked out by a cross from the left before controlling and turning, but his shot was off target. Four minutes later, Khama Billiat had an effort with a low shot which went wide.
Billiat then got it right of some beautiful team play, Musona chested the ball through for Karuru who in turn burst down the left before picking out the former with a low cross that the Kaizer Chiefs forward flicked past his former Sundowns teammate. After their game Musona and his troops stayed on at the Cairo International Stadium to watch Egypt overcome DRC 2-0 with crowd favourite Mohamed Salah finally getting off the mark with a well taken goal.
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