Benni McCarthy will be hoping Cape Town City’s luck don’t run out when they take on Mamelodi Sundowns in the MTN8 semifinal second leg on Sunday (3pm).
City escaped a couple of serious injuries and came away with a fortunate point from Free State Stars thanks to a lucky injury-time goal.
The Capetonians took the lead in the fifth minute thanks to Matthew Rusike’s opener, but Stars' pace troubled the visitors’ defence.
Bangali Keita and Goodman Dlamini struck back for the hosts in the second half and they led until the fourth minute of injury time.
That’s when City winger Craig Martin got lucky. His shot took a deflection of a defender, hit the crossbar, which ricocheted back off the goalkeeper’s head and into the net for a 2-2 draw.
City had earlier lost midfielder Roland Putsche to a horror tackle by Stars skipper Paulus Masehe and they will be without the Austrian for this weekend’s trip to Sundowns.
And Benni hopes his team can get back to playing football as they look to put Pitso Mosimane’s team, who they lead 1-0 on aggregate, to bed at the Lucas Moripe Stadium.
Angry with the tackle on Putsche after the game, Benni says: “It’s best if just be modest and not talk about the real issue that our football is facing.
“So I’m not even gonna talk about anything else. We have to be happy with the point.
“Now we can look forward to playing to the second leg in the semifinal against a team that plays beautiful football and sets the standard in our league and a team who know that you won’t lose a player to injury.
"I’m looking forward to Sunday.”
Wednesday night’s
PSL results Baroka 1 Highlands Park 1, Wits 3 AmaZulu 0, SuperSport United 2 Chippa United 1, Golden Arrows 1 Polokwane 1, Kaizer Chiefs 2 Celtic 2.