Cape Town City head coach Eric Tinkler has explained why midfielder Darwin Gonzalez took City’s match-winning penalty despite missing another in the MTN 8 quarter-final against Sekhukhune United in Polokwane on Saturday.
City were awarded their first-spot kick of the game in the dying minutes of the first half and Gonzalez missed a chance to make it count as he hit the cross bar.
The Venezuelan, however, got a chance to redeem himself with four minutes left on the clock when the Citizens won another penalty after Siphesihle Mkhize appeared to have handled the ball in his box.
The 30-year-old converted to send his side in to the semi-finals with a 1-0 win and Tinkler told the media after the match that it only made sense for Gonzalez to take the second penalty because others would have already been fearful, while he knew how to correct a mistake he made with the first one.
“Darwin at training, Darwin in the past penalties, not that we have had much penalties in the four years that I’ve been at Cape Town City but he’s been the penalty taker,” Tinkler told iDiski Times after the match.
“And normally his penalties are really, really good that’s the first time he’s actually missed. And obviously to take the second one I don’t think there was a better candidate because I think everybody else would have now shown more fear.
“He knows what he had done wrong. He normally doesn’t go where he went today in that first penalty. The second one is what he normally produces in terms of his penalties.
“So it made sense. I don’t think it would have made sense giving someone else the opportunity because I think they would have been thinking about the missed penalty in the first place.”
