Cape Town City suffered another sickening blow to their PSL title hopes, drawing 3-3 at Orlando Pirates on Saturday.
In what is becoming a familiar sight for coach Benni McCarthy, his inconsistent team managed to throw away a lead and dropped valuable points as their worrying winless run stretched to a five games.
This time, in-form stars Thabo Nodada and Kermit Erasmus put the Citizens 2-0 up inside the opening 10 minutes before the heat in Soweto got to the visitors, with Erasmus and Fagrie Lakay vomiting from exertion.
While Lakay was still on the pitch, he had the chance to make it 3-0 in City’s early onslaught.
But Pirates got a lucky break when skipper Happy Jele’s deflected strike found its way into the back of the net.
FORM: Thabo Nododa, right. Picture: Thabang Lepule/BackpagePix.
They were level at the break through Tshegofatso Mabasa and ahead on the hour mark when Alfred Ndengane headed home.
City then came to their senses and snatched a point five minutes from time thanks to substitute Shane Roberts.
Despite admitting that his side had ultimately dropped two points after leading, coach McCarthy managed to see the bright side.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/iamCityFC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#iamCityFC #AbsaPrem pic.twitter.com/nDW620vJHQ
— Cape Town City FC (@CapeTownCityFC)
He says: “We are a young team though, listen name one team in the PSL that has come to Orlando [Stadium] and have done what we did.
"I guess sometimes you can excuse the heat, let us make the mistakes.
“It should have been 4-0 by my count, three versus three, one-on-one situations. If it goes in, [it’s] 4-0, as good a team Pirates is, they don’t come back…
“But the story of our lives, we played so well to get our noses in front then we allow silly mistakes.”
PSL Results:
- Black Leopards 1, Bloemfontein Celtic 0;
- Highlands Park 2, Polokwane 0;
- SuperSport United 1, AmaZulu 0;
- Kaizer Chiefs 1, Baroka 0;