{"id":20491,"date":"2022-10-13T11:19:21","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T11:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag"},"modified":"2022-10-13T11:52:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T11:52:30","slug":"matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag","title":{"rendered":"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only concerned with getting better. Molebatsi was speaking on Tuesday after \u2018Tse Putsoa\u2019 demolished Naughty Boys 6-0 to stay top of the Vodacom Premiership and the question that was put to him was if Bantu\u2019s surprise defeat to<\/p>\n

Lijabatho on the same day already makes the champions title favourites. Molebatsi said it is not just Bantu they are competing with but there is also the Lesotho Correctional Service (LCS) and Lioli to think about.<\/p>\n

Molebatsi may play down Matlama\u2019s favourites tag but the champions are already five points ahead of Bantu who just can\u2019t seem to find any consistency and three ahead of LCS.<\/p>\n

It is understandable why Matlama fans have been walking around with big smiles on their faces because if their opponents keep slipping up, the champions may just coast to another title.<\/p>\n

However, May is far away and anything can still happen. \u201cWhen we first won our first (league) game against Linare that\u2019s when the picture became clear, it was very important to us because there are teams that just beat you.<\/p>\n

Linare beat us twice last season. We are not competing with Bantu only and it is still early, we want to win all our games,\u201d he said. \u201cWe made the boys realise Naughty Boys had (played and lost) three games, but the teams that beat them weren\u2019t doing it for us to just come and walkover.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just mental strength. We said: how do we score? We have played a lot of games that we could have won by a big margin but the problem was scoring,\u201d Molebatsi said.<\/p>\n

The champions had five different goals scorers against Naughty Boys but none of their strikers got on the score-sheet, in fact, both Thabiso Mari and Lazola Jokojokwane, the players that were expected to lead Matlama\u2019s line this season, are yet to find the back of the net for the club.<\/p>\n

Molebatsi said that does not bother him because Matlama have created a system where everyone has a responsibility to score, not just the attackers. \u201cWe believe everyone should score; we don\u2019t want to put (the strikers) under pressure.<\/p>\n

They are coming, their time is coming,\u201d Molebatsi said. \u201cWe are removing the pressure that strikers should score, defenders should defend and keepers should stop goals. Everyone should work coherently with others.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only concerned with getting better. Molebatsi was speaking on Tuesday after \u2018Tse Putsoa\u2019 demolished Naughty Boys 6-0 to stay top of the Vodacom Premiership and the question that was put to him was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":20490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[233,246,245,870],"class_list":["post-20491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-vodacom"],"yoast_head":"\nMatlama boss plays down favourites tag - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only conce ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only conce ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-10-13T11:19:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-10-13T11:52:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-10-13T11:19:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-10-13T11:52:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag\"},\"wordCount\":429,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"Vodacom\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag\",\"name\":\"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag - Lesotho\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-10-13T11:19:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-10-13T11:52:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"description\":\"Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only conce ...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/\",\"name\":\"Lesotho\",\"description\":\"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\",\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"cfeditoren\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag - Lesotho","description":"Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only conce ...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag","og_description":"Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only conce ...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag","og_site_name":"Lesotho","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa","article_published_time":"2022-10-13T11:19:21+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-10-13T11:52:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cfeditoren","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cfeditoren","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag"},"author":{"name":"cfeditoren","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"headline":"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag","datePublished":"2022-10-13T11:19:21+00:00","dateModified":"2022-10-13T11:52:30+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag"},"wordCount":429,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg","keywords":["Africa Press","Africa Press-Lesotho","Lesotho","Vodacom"],"articleSection":["all news","homepage-english","sport","twitter"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag","name":"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag - Lesotho","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg","datePublished":"2022-10-13T11:19:21+00:00","dateModified":"2022-10-13T11:52:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb"},"description":"Matlama head coach Mothobi Molebatsi says the champions are not focused on what other teams are doing and are only conce ...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_16-6347fbe663ad9.jpg","width":1280,"height":720,"caption":"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/matlama-boss-plays-down-favourites-tag#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Matlama boss plays down favourites tag"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/","name":"Lesotho","description":"Just another Africa News Agency Sites site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb","name":"cfeditoren","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7417380fa9e23b5c57fdbfdaf3fdf92ee478f759a084addda5faa3732853e74a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"cfeditoren"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}