“We always tell the team it takes a second to score a goal,” Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter reflects on captain Tefu Mashamaite’s injury time winner against Botswana’s Township Rollers. “I would have loved that we didn’t concede a goal at home, but that’s how it is.”

Amakhosi beat Rollers 2-1 in the first leg of the preliminary round of the CAF Champions League.

Chiefs looked to score numerous goals in the first 30 minutes of the game, but, sadly, many chances went to waste. Only Matthew Rusike found the net in the 6th minute, finishing beautifully after receiving a defence-splitting pass from Bernard Parker.

“It was a quite common scenario,” reacts Baxter. “We opened brightly. We scored the goal. We continued to create chances, but we failed to score more goals. That’s when you are looking for danger, especially against Rollers, which is too good a team to let something like that go unpunished. And they did punish us, scoring the equalizer early in the second half.”

“Thereafter the game became a bit tricky. We wanted to score, but we also tried not to give the ball away in dangerous areas for Rollers to punish us on the break.”

In the end, Chiefs scored the winner, which means that at least the club will travel to the second leg encounter with a slight advantage.

Baxter remains positive about Amakhosi progressing to the first round of the Champions League. However, he admits that for this to happen the defensive midfield should improve on Saturday’s performance against Rollers: “I have never seen our defensive midfielder pairing lose so many balls through sloppy passing. They are normally brilliant, but not tonight. Even worse was that they lost possession of the ball in very bad positions on the field.”

The return match will be played at Botswana’s National Stadium in Gaborone on Saturday, February 28 (kick-off is at 15:00).