A week on from helping the South Africa Under-23 team cruise to a 5-0 win over their Botswana U23 counterparts, Mandla Masango was at it again as he played a key role in seeing Amaglug Glug through to a 4-2 win over Libya U23 in a London 2012 Olympic qualifying game at the Sinaba Stadium in Daveyton.

Masango helped set up Themba Zwane for South Africa’s second goal on the stroke of half time and he managed to grab the fourth goal.

Speaking to kaizerchiefs.com after the game Masango said:

“We expected a difficult game and Libya gave us just that.

It was a very physical game, their players are bigger than our guys, but we managed to do the basics right and we got ourselves a two goal lead to take to the second leg.

A good team effort saw us through. The guys put a lot of work in preparing for the game during the week and the coach had us ready and well prepared for the game.”

Masango does feel that Amaglug Glug should have kept a clean sheet but he does not expect the two away goals the Libyans got, one of which was an own goal scored by SA Defender Ramahlwe Mphahelele will have an effect of the overall outcome of the game.

“We pleased to have this lead, I am happy with my personal contributions to the team and I hope to continue playing a part in the team’s next game, we are in a strong position to progress to the next round. They got two goals here so I do not see why we cannot score goals in the return leg.”

Masango also paid credit to the Libyan team for making a game of it despite an unstable political situation in their country, “Libya showed great character they really gave us a run, in spite of all their personal grief they managed to get here and play the game, credit to them for doing that.”

Bongani Ndulula and Phumelele Bhengu were also on target for Ephraim Shakes Mashaba's team scoring the first and third goals respectively, while Sami Alghulla scored for Libya.

Masango was set up by Ndlulua for his goal, the return leg is scheduled to take place in April.