Stellenbosch head coach Steve Barker praised his ‘warriors’ after they beat Cape Town City 1-0 in the Cape Derby at the DHL Stadium on Tuesday evening.
Stellenbosch maintained their good record against City, having last lost a derby game in 2020.
The result also see Stellies move into second spot, ahead of City on goal difference.
It was an entertaining game, with City controlling a lot of the possession, but Stellenbosch, who always looked dangerous on the counter, struck in that manner when Devin Titus scored the game’s only game.
“Ja, obviously, I think, for us as coaches, you don’t always enjoy matches (like this), Barker said after the game.
“Because obviously the tension and in that, but I do think from a neutral point of view, I felt it was a game that was two teams trying to win a football match and really having a go at each other.
“I thought from a tactical point of view, they had their ideas and their plans, and so did we, and I thought it was an interesting, and a good tactical battle between the two teams. And then obviously, the desire from both teams to want to win the match was high. So I thought it made for a very good football match.
“Obviously, Cit are a good team, it is not in that position that they are because they’re not a good team, they’ve got technically good players, they use their wingbacks really well played with two 10s, Goedeman and Kutumela and Mayo obviously, is in really good form.
“So we knew that they would ask us a lot of questions with the ball, so the idea and plan was we had to defend well, we knew we had to negate the wing backs, we had to make sure that they’re not receiving the ball behind our lines and the two 10s causing problems. And I thought it worked really well.
“And we obviously then would be dangerous on our transitions. City do send a lot of numbers in attack, so we knew that we would have opportunities on the counter to hurt them, which ultimately, I think the goal was, I thought was quality passes from Basadien to Van Wyk into Titus, we got the goal.
“I felt maybe once or twice in the game going on, we could have got the second with maybe a little bit of better execution and decision making on the transitions. Unfortunately, we didn’t. And then obviously, they were throwing everything they could at us in the last sort of 30 minutes of the game, and we had to repel a lot of the attacks, defend really well.
“And once again, when you go to a field and you’ve got 11 warriors, and whatever player you bring on is gonna go and fight for the badge, and even those not in the squad. So when you’ve got players that are willing to work for each other, put an effort, you give yourself a winning chance every time you play.
“So again, a great performance, a great three points, massive for us as a football club, to be in the position that we are. Obviously still a long way to go. But ja, our league form, I think we’ve got a really good unbeaten run currently. And I think this just sets us up nicely for what’s going to be another tough encounter coming Saturday.”
