A post-match interview by Head Coach for South African football club Gosebo United, Kgoloko Thobejane, in which he said “Football can kill you. It will kill you a real death,” has been fodder for jokes and memes that have spread on internet like wildfire. For passionate football fans, sometimes a loss to your arch-rivals can be a matter of life and death.
The Blantyre derby of FCB Nyasa Big Bullets and Mighty Wanderers is such a meltdown where both sets of fans scream, cry, lash out, and even become violent when the latest episode has not gone their way.
The latest episode of this gigantic clash in the TNM Super League saw Bullets being thumped by three goals to nil at a canter.
This means Wanderers have racked up three wins, seven draws, and two losses while scoring 13 goals past Bullets goalkeepers in 12 matches in the TNM Super League from 2019 to 2025.
Conversely, Bullets have notched two wins and 3 losses, scoring 10 goals from the same number of games in the league.
The strengths and weaknesses of both teams have been duly highlighted by this page in previous entries when the two teams clashed.
However, a cup game is a totally different animal to a league game as Bullets have shown in previous meetings they have played against Wanderers, especially in FDH Bank Cup, Airtel Cup, and Castel Challenge cup.
As Wanderers are still nursing the victory hangover of beating their arch-rivals and moving around with a spring on their feet, Bullets are still licking their wounds with no bragging rights.
Having completed a double over Bullets by beating them twice in the league, Wanderers have a psychological edge as a weapon against Bullets when they meet in the FDH Bank Cup semifinal match on Sunday.
However, Bullets are no pushovers when it comes to knock-out games as they have consistently shown that they are cup specialists.
Wanderers’ psychological edge over bullets
Wanderers are flying high and riding on a huge tidal wave, having beaten Bullets twice in the league by scoring a total of four goals without replies. This is no easy feat and by no means a fluke.
This achievement came about through the hard work, bravery, technical skills, and an execution of a genius tactical masterclass class by Bob Mpinganjira, the Nomads’ coach.
All this is a source of huge confidence to Wanderers players as they have maximum belief in their abilities and also trust the clarity and tactical game plan their manager explains.
This means that when they meet Bullets again in the FDH Bank Cup semifinal match, confidence and belief in themselves will be high, which will positively impact their game and result.
On the other hand, bullets will have to contend with this psychological edge first, before even kicking the ball.
They need to be well conditioned psychologically in order to believe and trust that this time, what their coach tells them will work having failed twice this year.
This will be a tall order by itself as psychology is a huge area in football circles.
Bullets the cup specialists
Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi is famously quoted as saying, “Winning is not a sometimes thing. It is an all-the-time thing.”
This means winning is a habit, and when it comes to cup games or knockout games, Bullets have made an art out of winning these games and more, especially when meeting their rivals Wanderers.
For instance, on 4 December, 2021, Bullets knocked out Wanderers in a semifinal match of Airtel Top 8 with a 4-1 scoreline, with Babatunde Adepoju scored a hat-trick.
This is in sharp contrast to the TNM Super League encounter where Bullets had lost by a goal to nil to Wanderers in an earlier match played on 27 September of the same year. The first round clash of the TNM Super League had been abandoned following Misheck Selemani’s equaliser for Bullets as acts of hooliganism erupted at the stadium.
Similarly, in 2022, Bullets clobbered Mighty Wanderers by four goals to nil in the FDH Bank Cup as Babatunde, who had come from the bench, Hassan Kajoke and Anthony Mfune were among the scorers.
Again, this is in sharp contrast to two TNM Super League games where Bullets won the first round by two goals to 1 in March while the second round saw Wanderers draw with Bullets in a high scoring match that ended 3-3 on 15 August, 2022.
In addition, in 2023, Bullets knocked out Wanderers in the semifinals of Castel Challenge cup through a 4-2 post-match penalties spell after the game had ended in 1-1 stalemate in regulation time.
However, the two had produced 1-1 and 0-0 stalemate in both May and July, respectively, in the TNM Super league in the same year.
The same pattern followed on 28 July 2024 when Bullets eliminated Wanderers by two goals to nil with Babatunde notching a brace in the FDH Bank Cup quarter finals when they had drawn 1-1 in April and Bullets winning in the second round on 26 October by two goals to one.
It is actually on such history that Bullets is.
Therefore, as Wanderers continue to pride in the clout of beating their arch-rivals convincingly in the TNM Super league and are posturing the psychological edge over them, Bullets will need to have the required resilience to bounce back, manage frustrations and nerves as they have done previously, in order to stay calm under the pressure which Wanderers will bring in the FDH Bank Cup semifinal.
