14 May 2023

First Division North League champions, Tafic, are preparing for a long stay at the premier league.

Indelible in their minds is the day they, together with Molepolole City Stars and Miscellaneous relegated to first division football after playing only 20 of the 30 premiership games owing to a league stoppage due to COVID-19 during the 2019/20 season.

The heartbreaking decision saw Tafic on the brink of going down to division one football.

However, Eleven Angels presented Tafic with a lifeline when the former successfully shot into premier league through playoffs. Angels left a space that saw Tafic’s first division life resuscitated. Prior to the FDN playoffs, Tafic had a terrible season which they immediately buried and reinvented themselves into an unstoppable force.

Now, Tafic are back with the big boys of top tier PL and are planning to stay permanently up, where they think they belong. 

Coach Thatayaone Sonny believes proper planning will have Tafic rid themselves of its hitherto reputation of promoting to PL and immediately returning to FDN. 

At first division, Tafic planned for the whole season, not a piecemeal planning, according to coach Sonny. “We can’t think of going there and the returning immediately. We want to sustain our premier league status and that calls for so many things like serious planning,” said Sonny in a post-match interview following a 1-all draw away to Peacemakers.

Sonny said Tafic had been on an up and down trajectory due to financial troubles. However, with petrohyper providing financial assistance to the team renowned for their ‘Undipe Ndi Kupe’ style of football, Sonny believes part of requirements for staying up has been dealt with.

“My belief is that petrohyper brought life to the team and I believe they will help the team stay up,” said the team coach. “We’re still to sit down and discuss the way forward,” he added.

For part, Rebagamang Keimetswe of Peacemakers breathed a sigh of relief after his side sailed to safety on the final day.

“Heish, at last! We’ve been targeting top eight finish, but we’re not worried about finishing outside the bracket because our aim has always been to survive relegation,” said Keimetswe.

Having arrived to a team struggling with fitness, Keimetswe said he immediately overloaded his players so they could compete and evade the relegation trap.

“We would occasionally go house-to-house, talk to players individually in order to restore hope and that worked for us because we eventually grinded results,” said Keimetswe.

Meanwhile, Rolling Guys and Miscellaneous have relegated from FDN while Chadibe have qualified for playoffs against VTM from First Division South. ends