Da Gama shares wisdom about fighting off the axe

The Motsepe Championship may be the talk of town due to a three-way title race involving Cape Town Spurs, Casric Stars and Polokwane City. But there's a relegation dogfight happening at the bottom of the first division that might have a detrimental effect on the livelihood of players. 

Two bottom sides in the league sponsored by the Motsepe Foundation automatically get relegated, unlike in the DStv Premiership where the team placed 15th gets the lifeline of a playoff.

As things stand, Black Leopards and TTM occupy the last two places in the NFD, while Platinum City Rovers have 27 points in 14th place.

Lidoda Duvha have three games to save themselves and avoid joining other fallen giants – such as Jomo Cosmos and Santos – in the third tier. TTM will be hoping to catch Rovers, who are aiming to reach the 30-point mark to be safe.

Owen Da Gama, who is tasked with saving Leopards, explained how fighting at the bottom is key in the character development of players. 

"You need to get the buying from the players to understand how important such a process is for building their characters, it’s highly important for character building," Da Gama told Sowetan.  

“Most of the top players in the world and SA at some point in their career have experienced something where they have had to fight for their dear lives and that’s character building," he said.

Relegation often leads to players and staff members losing jobs as the club can not retain them. According to Da Gama, this is one of the harsh realities of relegation. 

“There are some players who after this, it won’t be easy [for them ] to find a team," said the former Orlando Pirates coach.

“Their livelihood [are at stake]... if you have 35 players and 10 staff members that's 45 people without an income. A lot of players have families and other people that are dependent on them, so that is cutting the livelihood of people."

NFD results:

TTM 2 - 0 Magesi; Uthongathi 1 - 1 Venda; All Stars 2 - 1 Baroka; Hungry Lions 0 - 0 Black Leopards; Casric Stars 1 - 0 Pretoria University; Cape Town Spurs 2 - 0 Platinum City Rovers; JDR Stars 2 - 2 Polokwane City; NB La Masia 2 - 1 Pretoria Caillies.