{"id":26237,"date":"2023-03-13T15:30:54","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T15:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf"},"modified":"2023-03-13T15:42:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T15:42:29","slug":"big-blow-for-ldf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf","title":{"rendered":"Big blow for LDF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>Lesotho Defence Force\u2019s (LDF) Vodacom Premier League title hopes suffered a massive blow when they fell to a 2-1 defeat to ten-man Matlama yesterday afternoon at Ratjomose.<\/p>\n

The loss is especially painful because \u2018Sohle-Sohle\u2019 failed to capitalise on Bantu\u2019s slip-up on Sunday when the leaders surprisingly lost 1-0 to Lesotho Mounted Police Service (LMPS).<\/p>\n

LDF remain five points behind Bantu with nine games to play and their grief was evident as they watched a golden chance slip through their fingers. It was opposite emotions on the opposing bench as Matlama fought their way to a sixth win a row which lifted the reigning champions into third place with 41 points.<\/p>\n

With the gap to Bantu suddenly down to eight points, can Matlama dream of defending their crown? For yesterday at least they looked like a championship team as goals from Lazola Jokojokwane and Jane Thabants\u030co sealed the deal and gave \u2018Tse Putsoa\u2019 maximum points.<\/p>\n

Matlama started the game slowly and were dominated by the home side for the entire first half and were lucky to go to the half time break without conceding.<\/p>\n

The visitors came back better in the second half and their first real attack nearly ended in a goal when a scramble in LDF\u2019s penalty box resulted in four successive corners for the visitors.<\/p>\n

LDF were eventually able to clear the ball but it wasn\u2019t long before Jokojokwane gave Matlama the lead in the 57th minute, a minute in which LDF\u2019s defence seemed to be all over the place with no player aware where their opponents were.<\/p>\n

With 20 minutes to go, Matlama were reduced to ten men when Rethabile Mokokoane was shown a straight red card for handling the ball on the goal-line which denied LDF an obvious goal.<\/p>\n

Rets\u030celisitsoe Mopeli levelled matters from the spot and, with a numerical advantage, LDF grew in confidence and started searching for a winning goal.<\/p>\n

However, Matlama had the last laugh when Thabants\u030co tested Likano Mphuthi with a sublime strike from 20 yards out and the former Likuena goalkeeper was not even able to get close to it.<\/p>\n

It was a goal worthy of winning any match and from there \u2018Tse Putsoa\u2019 had the easiest job of defending their goal. Even though they were a man down, it looked as if the game could be played the entire day and LDF would still not find a goal.<\/p>\n

At the end of the game, Matlama head coach Halemakale Mahlaha was full of praises for his players saying the victory will give them confidence going into the weekend\u2019s game against Liphakoe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of our style of play we tried, I think a lot happened that affected us, one of them is the condition of the field, the grass was long and it appears it was their strategy (to make the grass long) but our players worked hard to adjust to the conditions,\u201d Mahlaha said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did expect LDF to come with everything they\u2019ve got, we are behind them on the log, so we prepared for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe managed to score two goals and resist and defend what we had, we also prepared our style of play because LDF struggle against us but we didn\u2019t execute our gameplan the way we wanted,\u201d the Matlama mentor added.<\/p>\n

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

Africa-Press – Lesotho. Lesotho Defence Force\u2019s (LDF) Vodacom Premier League title hopes suffered a massive blow when they fell to a 2-1 defeat to ten-man Matlama yesterday afternoon at Ratjomose. The loss is especially painful because \u2018Sohle-Sohle\u2019 failed to capitalise on Bantu\u2019s slip-up on Sunday when the leaders surprisingly lost 1-0 to Lesotho Mounted Police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":26236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[233,246,406,245],"class_list":["post-26237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-ldf","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"\nBig blow for LDF - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lesotho Defence Force\u2019s (LDF) Vodacom Premier League title hopes suffered a massive blow when they fell to a 2-1 defeat ...\" \/>\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\/big-blow-for-ldf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Big blow for LDF\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lesotho Defence Force\u2019s (LDF) Vodacom Premier League title hopes suffered a massive blow when they fell to a 2-1 defeat ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf\" \/>\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=\"2023-03-13T15:30:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-13T15:42:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678708936.81.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1688\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1125\" \/>\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=\"3 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\/big-blow-for-ldf#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Big blow for LDF\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-13T15:30:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-13T15:42:29+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf\"},\"wordCount\":571,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678708936.81.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"LDF\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/big-blow-for-ldf\",\"name\":\"Big blow for LDF - 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