MASERU — When the best your team have managed in 16 matches is a single win and is rooted at the bottom of the log what you need is a miracle to survive relegation.
A miracle is what under-performing Majantja needs at the moment after their miserable start to the season.
Hope is something they also need.
Luckily for them Masupha Letsie, their coach, has plenty of that.
He is hopeful his team will start adding some points to the 10 they have so far bagged from 16 matches.
Even after their defeats continued to pile up on Sunday when they lost 1-0 to Bantu in front of about 2 000 spectators in Mohale’s Hoek, Letsie still refused to accept that their days in the elite league are numbered.
“There are still possible chances that we might not even be relegated when the league ends,” Letsie said after the match.
That alone would have sufficed as probably the most optimistic comment from a coach this season until he added that his team will finish in the top 10.
“It is never too late both in football and in life hence why we are still hopeful we will finish in among the top 10 come end of the league on May 6,” he said.
“I know people have already ruled us out but there are always surprises in football.”
Letsie believes it is not too late for his team to recover and start winning games.
That can only happen if his defenders stop leaking goals and strikers start putting the ball where they are employed to put it — the opponents’ goal.
Letsie said Majantja was not playing badly but they are just unlucky not to score and win more games.
But apart from the bad luck he also has someone to blame for his team’s terrible run.
“We are playing good football but we are just unlucky to be playing against referees in most cases,” he said.
“You must have witnessed that the referee rejected our goal in the first half despite the fact that everybody including our opponents saw it.”
He was referring to Mohau Rammoneng’s “goal”which was rejected by referee Matheola Makhobalo in the dying minutes of the first half.
An unjust might have been done but blaming referees won’t get Majantja out of the relegation zone.
What they need is to win games and hope that fellow relegation candidates Likhopo, Linare and Maduma continue to struggle.
