Nyasa Big Bullets head coach Calisto Pasuwa has issued an apology to the club’s Lilongwe based fans for the 3-2 penalty shootout defeat to Silver Strikers in the quarterfinals of the 2019 FISD Cup in Lilongwe.
Bullets surrendered a 1-nil lead with 15 minutes to play before missing three penalties to cut short their journey in the competition.
Speaking during a post-match interview, Pasuwa issued an apology to the fans who are yet to see Bullets win any game in Lilongwe.
“I must apologize to our Lilongwe fans who have never celebrated whenever we are playing here. We are able to win in the Northern Region and in Blantyre but we haven’t won any game in Lilongwe so I feel sorry for them and I am apologizing on behalf of the team,” he said.
The mentor bemoaned his side’s failure to defend whenever leading.
“It’s very painful to lose in this manner. In each and every game, we are able to create goal scoring opportunities but we fail to score more goals and in the end, our opponents pounce on us. You can see that Silver Strikers created only a single chance from which they scored their equalizer. As a coach, I am concerned because conceding week in week out has proved to be costly and we must do something about this problem,” he said.
On his team’s performance, Pasuwa said: “We dominated, we created chances but lack of maturity saw us giving away the lead at a very crucial period. Our friends were outplayed but we couldn’t capitalize and in the end, we got punished. I wouldn’t blame my men for missing the penalties because that is lottery but I am blaming them for failing to kill off the game when we were in control,” he added.
The Bullets mentor then told the media that his men will concentrate on defending the TNM Super League.
This was Bullets’ third defeat to Silver Strikers in the competition.
In 2018, the Bankers recorded a 2-0 victory over Bullets in the last eight of the match.
