Black Stars goalkeeper, Richard Ofori
Black Stars goalkeeper, Richard Ofori, made a costly mistake for Orlando Pirates in their 2-1 defeat to Moroka Swallows in the MTN8 quarter-finals on Saturday.
But his coach Josef Zinnbauer said, “it wasn’t his day,” when asked about goalkeeper Richard Ofori’s mistake.
The 27-year-old Ghanaian was thrown into the deep end after making a return from a lengthy injury layoff.
Ofori was initially injured in March when playing in the CAF Confederation Cup draw with ES Setif where he was replaced after 15-minutes after pulling his groin moments after taking a goal kick.
A costly error by Ofori during the first half handed a soft goal to Swallows forward Ruzaigh Gamildien when the keeper hesitated in clearing a ball he had intercepted which ended up being lofted into an empty goal. The striker ended up scoring a brace.
Zinnbauer defended his keeper in a post-match interview, saying he attributed the error to lack of match fitness.
“If you concede a goal from a goalkeeper mistake, it is always unlucky. We are not happy with this, but most of the time, when keepers make a mistake, it ends up as a goal,” Zinnbauer said.
“We know we have to work, (Richard) Ofori was out for a long time, but he had some good friendly games and performed well in training as well, now it wasn’t his day, but it is like that – when a keeper makes a mistake, it’s a goal.
“It’s not easy for the goalkeeper to then come back, and it’s also not easy for the team, but the team made a good decision and [had] a good response, but this was not enough. We had opportunities to score more than one goal, then nobody will talk about Ofori, but it’s always like that. We knew the question would come.
“We are going to analyse him, work with him, and he will be 100% better, but I know last season Ofori won games for us, but sometimes you lose the game. So, we’ll work with him, and he’ll be better,” the coach added.