Magesi FC head coach Clinton Larsen labelled their historic and shock Carling Knockout Cup final win over Mamelodi Sundowns as “playing against the national team”.
Despite coming into this tie as the underdogs, Larsen’s charges had all the reasons to put up a fight against their much-fancied opponents having claimed scalps of Orlando Pirates, TS Galaxy and Richards Bay before completing the giant-slaying mission.
Dikwena Tsa Meetse rallied from a goal to pull off a smash-and-grab in the 87th minute to upset the star-studded Chloorkop outfit 2-1.
Speaking on #PrimeSportsWithMahlatse, Larsen admitted that this final was much more difficult to his previous one when he was at the helm of Bloemfontein Celtic in 2012 beating the same opponents to lift the Telkom Knockout title.
“I think this one was a lot more difficult,” Larsen said.
“Back in 2012, even though they had the Hlompho Kekanas and the [Khama] Billiats, weren’t playing against the national team (chuckles).
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“This felt like playing Bafana Bafana tonight. Six of his players started the other day and few on the bench. So, with so much quality, I thought that also I had a lot more experience in that Celtics team in 2012. The John Aruwas, the Kurt Lentjies of this world had lots of games behind them.
“And this group, I’ve got six of my starters have six games in the PSL, so in terms of the collective experience, we very low in that department.
“I think this probably ranks right up there with my best achievements as a coach. 21 years of coaching. I started in 2003/24 season in the NFD with Durban Stars.
“It’s been a long while and I’ve only been to two cup finals, and that alone should tell you how difficult it is to get to a cup final.
“I’m happy that I’ve been to two and won two, so 100% record.”
