Man-mountain Senegalese striker Mamadou Diallou led the onslaught as Jomo Cosmos bundled holder Kaizer Chiefs out of the Coca-Cola Cup with an emphatic and deserved 2-0 victory at Rustenburg’s Olympia Park on Sunday afternoon.
The peroxided, bulldozing Diallou blitzed his way through a bemused Chiefs’ defence in only the 12th minute to open the score with a thunderous shot into the roof of the net.
And Diallou was the architect of the clinically headed 59th-minute goal from Zambian striker Chris Katongo that effectively sounded the death knell for the team who had won this competition three times since its inception four seasons ago.
The game was imbued with the elements of a grudge contest because of the long-standing rivalry between respective owners Jomo Sono and Kaizer Motaung and recent allegations by Motaung of questionable tactics by hard-tackling Cosmos central defender Andrew ”Jaws of Life” Rabutla.
Instead, it was the frustrated Chiefs who suffered the indignity of having a player sent off in the 70th minute when Ugandan David Obua, the hero of the vibrant, derby victory over Orlando Pirates last weekend, was shown a red card by referee Daniel Bennett for an off-the-ball infringement.
And although they battled resolutely with 10 men until the end, Chiefs might easily have suffered further indignity in the face of decisive counter-attacks from Diallou, Katongo and the mesmerising Laffor — as good an attacking trio as anything in the Premier Soccer League.
The bad news for Bafana coach Stuart Baxter is that none of them are South African, with Laffor and Diallo hailing from Liberia and Senegal respectively and Zambia having first call on the acrobatic Katongo.
Katongo’s victory celebration after scoring Cosmos’ second goal suggested he has possibilities as an Olympic gymnast and further rubbed salt into the wounds of a Chiefs team who, one commentator suggested, ”could play all night without scoring”.
Still, Cosmos goalkeeper Avril Phali produced a couple of stupendous saves and youthful centre-back Tapelo Tshilo was another hero in defence of a victory savoured by Sono with undisguised and warranted delight. — Sapa