It’s hardly a phenomenon these days for a soccer team to proclaim they were robbed.
But after an intense, emotionally charged 1-1 Premier Soccer League (PSL) derby draw between old rivals Moroka Swallows and Kaizer Chiefs at Johannesburg Stadium on Sunday afternoon, both sides were echoing this sentiment.
The contrasting stances were the result of what appeared to be the reluctance of referee Charl Theron to award an apparently clear-cut penalty to each side.
First, redoubtable Swallows central defender Mohammed Ouseb looked to all and sundry in the 14 000-strong crowd to have hand-balled in the 35th minute when Chiefs were leading 1-0 — and then David Obua unmistakably tripped new Birds sensation Tsweu Mokoro in the penalty area in the 60th minute after Swalows had equalised.
It was the kind of high-charged, emotional game that is a handful to handle, and Theron could be excused for being unsighted when he should have awarded Chiefs a penalty, but it boggles the imagination why he did not penalise Obua when he lost his cool after being sold a dummy by Mokoro.
The net result was that defending champions Chiefs, while remaining unbeaten, drew for the seventh time in 10 matches, dropped eight points behind log leaders Orlando Pirates and provided scant evidence they are equipped to retain their title.
And, perhaps, the bitterest pill of all to literally swallow in these circumstances is that a Birds combination that Chiefs have consistently upstaged since the launch of the PSL was on this occasion more poised, cohesive and, in simple terms, the better footballing team on view.
It was only a horrendous mix-up in the Swallows defence that enabled Chiefs to open the score in the 26th minute through a Gert Schalkwyk header after a cross from Obua on the left flank had somehow eluded four defenders.
Senegalese striker Mame Niang, however, demonstrated an element of sheer class three minutes after the interval while fastening on to a defence-splitting pass from Ouseb, swivelling through Chiefs’ defence and equalising with an unstoppable shot past goalkeeper Emile Baron into the corner of the net.
Baron prevented Swallows from opening the score in only the seventh minute with a glorious reflex save from star-of-the-game Mokoro, but the match fizzled out amid an epidemic of missed chances from both sides, a glut of booking from Theron and the echoing cry among both teams’ supporters about being robbed. — Sapa