TS Galaxy salute Jacksa Spears grit as they march on

Despite their superiority on the day, Basic admitted Spears – largely an unknown quantity during preparations – showed exactly why they had managed to progress so far in the competition.

Basic added that Galaxy had to remain disciplined throughout the match to avoid a potential cup upset.

"Very very tough game, I think we played better the first half than the second half. The second half was very difficult for us because of the win also but in the end we scored the goals in good time,” Basic said. 

“I think it was a really good time when the game went up and down, we played not so well with the ball. We didn't create a lot of chances but what we did well, [our] mentality I think, we prepared the game well. 

“It's not easy to play against these teams and I must say, very, very big congratulations to our opponents, they played the first half really well, very compact with good transitions."

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Basic believes the cup fixture also exposed some frailties Galaxy will have to fix when they return to Betway Premiership action.  

With the FIFA ban finally lifted, Galaxy showed off the strength of their squad by giving an opportunity to some new faces – one of them being goal scorer Tshepo Kakora.

"Every player is important especially when you must have 18, 20 players to have a good training session. In every position you must have two good players, to have competition,” he added. 

“When you have good competition, you have better performance on every player, that means every player is important but you can't see every player because some we signed and they are on the bench. 

“They need time, it's very difficult at the moment to come with new players inside, we have our game model, we just trust the game model. We trust the process also, in every game we lose, the last five games in the PSL, we created a lot of opportunities, that means we have a little bit of a problem in the defense.

“We tried to fix this with the mentality, with the meetings, with the training sessions but every player is important at TS Galaxy."