Bitter sweet

Civil Service United yesterday came from behind to stun FCB Nyasa Bullets 2-1, their first home loss in all competitions this season, but the hosts still scraped through to the Airtel Top 8 semi-finals with a 3-2 aggregate score-line.

The hosts, who won the first leg 2-0, thought they were home and dry when just 40 seconds into the match, Maxwell Phodo Gasten’s header from Eric Kaonga’s corner kick found Civil goalkeeper Tione Tembo and his defenders flat-footed.

But little did they know what Civil had up their sleeves as the visitors staged a fierce come back as it only took them nine minutes to level the scores.

Midfielder Lloyd Aaron made no mistake  from the penalty spot in the 10th minute to beat Richard Chimbamba in Bullets goals, after a foul in the box.

From then on it was the visitors who showed that they were in town not for sight-seeing as they slowly put he hosts to the knife.

Bullets had to make an early change to pull out injured Gomezgani Chirwa and brought in MacFarlane Mgwira.

The first-half ended with the two sides tied one-all but with Civil on top with Innocent Tanganyika and Luke Chima a constant threat in Bullets danger zone and Aaron in control of the midfield.

A draw at half-time confirmed that the winner in this encounter would face Blue Eagles who knocked out Moyale Barracks while the winner between Silver Strikers and Mighty Mukuru wanderers will face Mafco.

Bullets coach Kallisto Pasuwa made two changes at half-time, bringing in Anthony Mfune for Thomson Magombo.

The visitors went on to take a lead in the 55th minute through Chifundo Ngapemba whose fine header gave Chimbamba no chance.

The goal invigorated the visitors and Civil introduced Festus Chikwezga, replacing Ngapenga.

Chikwezga immediately made an impact as the substitute put through unmarked Aaron who missed with Chimbamba already beaten.

Desperate Pasuwa made two more substitutions bringing in Lanjesi Nkhoma and Yankho Singo for Precious Phiri and Hassan Kajoke and later on Peter Banda replaced Phodo, but they had little impact as Bullets lost their first game at home in all competitions.

Despite being knocked out of the competition, Civil coach Abbas Makawa said he was impressed with his team’s performance.

“I am very happy because I have seen some positives in the team. You know where we are coming from. We are going through a bad patch and for the boys to put up such a fight I am proud of them. This could be a turning point for us,” he said.

Makawa, however, said they gave away the game after conceding early in the match.

He said: “We conceded early and that destabilised our players. But we told them to keep on fighting until we managed to equalise.

“Come second-half we pushed the players, telling them that we can make it until we got the second goal.”

 “Towards the end we created a lot of chances but the problem is that we didn’t convert them into goals.”

For Pasuwa, it was the same old song of his players suffering a burn out due to congested fixtures.

He said: “We lost and we qualified. That’s what football is all about. We have been talking of fatigue. You see, As a coach, sometimes you end up just looking. You can’t do anything.  I have been talking about this that a player is also a human being and they need also to recover.

“You saw most of the times we were trying to push them and again you could see we could not get the best out of them.

“We have managed to lose 2-1, but we have qualified. That was the best result for us.”