Stars played to a goalless stalemate in their first ever fixture on the CAF interclub stage against Rwandan Cup winners Mukura Victory Sports at the Bidvest Stadium on Wednesday afternoon.
Both sides had their fair share of chances in the first half, but Stars dominated territorially and in possession in the second half as the visitors’ energy levels faded with temperature’s having reached close to the 30-degrees mark.
Nonetheless, Ea Lla Koto were undoubtedly the better side over the course of the 90 minutes, with plenty of scoring chances going abegging, particularly towards the end of the clash.
Thus, Mosala rued the missed opportunity to take an advantage into the second leg, which is set to take place in Butare next week Wednesday.
“I think it’s a bit disappointing because we were supposed to win this one. We could see their level is a little bit lower than ours, so, for me, this was supposed to be won – easily,” Mosala told snl24.com/kickoff after the match.
“We took time to get into the game, we were a little bit sluggish and slow in the first 15 minutes of the first half, but then created chances and we also allowed them to come back at us and create [their own chances].
“But again, we can’t score goals and it becomes a concern for us.”
Stars faced several challenges in the lead up to their maiden Confed Cup encounter, having been forced to move their fixture away from Goble Park in Bethlehem due to CAF compliance regulations, and were also inactive for over two weeks during the international break and the Telkom Knockout semi-final round this past weekend.
However, Mosala refused to use those factors as excuses and insisted they had sufficient time to prepare adequately for their conditions.
“Yeah, it would have been better maybe if we had a week [between the CAF game and the last domestic game], but what can we do? At the end of the day, we knew we would be playing these games, so we were supposed to be ready and be better than the opponents,” he added.
“Obviously, if it’s your home game, you want to play in front of your people and supporters. It can be a little bit of a disadvantage, but we knew we were going to be playing here for a while - we’ve won games here [at Bidvest Stadium] before.”