Mikia Kalati
LIFOFANE on Sunday beat Mzamane FC 1-0 on the last day of the A-Division north stream to secure promotion to the Premier League in style having gone the whole season unbeaten.
The Butha-Buthe outfit joins Lijabatho, who secured Premier League promotion with two games to spare three weeks ago.
Lifofane were competing for promotion with Litšilo, who have had to settle for the second spot.
Lifofane coach Pitso Mphunyane told this publication that his side worked hard to secure the promotion.
The team won 14 out of 18 games and drew four and the coach said it was special for his side to have gone all season unbeaten for the 2018/19 season.
“I think the success came on the back of a long and hard season where we prepared very well and also started very well,” Mphunyane said.
“That made life easy to get the best out of our players. We were able to push our players all the way.”
He said that they were not scared of failing on the last day of the season as Litšilo also had a chance of winning on the final day of the season provided Lifofane had dropped points.
“No, we were not scared of throwing it on the final day. We knew that our competitors needed to win their final game by 12 goals provided we lost to Mzamane.
“We knew that it was not going to be easy because we recently played Lerotholi Polytechnic, who were their opponents on the day. They are a tough side and there was no way they were going to lose by such a huge margin.
“That was a motivation for us to go into our last game with relaxed minds,” he said.
The Lifofane coach said they are now looking forward to life in the Premier League but said they also know that they will have to reinforce their squad to compete at the highest level of local football.
“We have to prepare very well for the first season and reinforce our squad with a few new players who have Premier League experience.
“The technical team as well must be reinforced and I need (the management’s) support as well to have a strong technical team,” Mphunyane said.
