Cape Town – Mwape Musonda bagged his first goal of the season as Black Leopards claimed a narrow 1-0 win over Bloemfontein Celtic at Thohoyandou Stadium in the Absa Premiership on Sunday.
Musonda, last season’s top scorer in the league, took seven fixtures to get off the mark in this campaign but the goal turned out to be a vital one for the home side.
Leopards were desperate to return to winning ways after defeat to Baroka and a heart-breaking draw against Stellenbosch in their previous two fixtures.
Celtic, on the other hand, came into this match full of confidence after beating Stellenbosch and holding Chippa United to a 0-0 draw in the two fixtures before this one.
The visitors were perhaps a little bit too over-confident at the start, though, as Musonda broke the deadlock in just the ninth minute of the game.
The big striker has struggled to hit the target so far this season but it would’ve been almost impossible to miss this time around as he fired home from very close range after the visitors’ defense failed to clear a looping cross from Thuso Phala.
Celtic struggled to get into the game in the first half and should have been more than just a single goal down at the break.
However, the Leopards front pairing of Musonda and Lefa Hlongwane were pretty woeful in front of goal.
The visitors were handed a golden opportunity to get back into the match on the stroke of half time when they were awarded a penalty. Unfortunately, Ronald Pfumbidzai hit the spot-kick straight at Jonas Mendes who made a comfortable save.
The status quo remained for much of the second period before Celtic began throwing bodies forward late on in search of an equaliser.
They were able to snatch a few shots off from long range but Mendes was equal to the task and made a number of decent saves to preserve Black Leopards’ lead.
Arohasina Andrianarimanana should have sealed the win around the 80-minute mark when he was played through clean on goal but he snatched at the shot and pulled it wide of the target.
The visitors made one late push deep into stoppage time at the end of the match and came within an inch of pulling level but were denied by a couple of clutch saves by Mendes – who really should be commended for bailing out his misfiring strikers.
