William Perry says Beira badly need a win over SLAC

SLAC and Ferroviario da Beira couldn’t be in a more similar situation ahead of their meeting on Saturday in the Sahara Conference.

Both teams face a must-win situation or see their Basketball Africa League (BAL) enter a difficult terrain.

After SLAC opened their BAL journey with an emphatic win over hosts DUC, few expected the Guinean champions would lose two in a row such was their admirable attitude in front of a tireless home crowd.

SLAC are 1-2, but as their Head Coach Zeljko Zecevic say, “My players are grown up men and that’s why they are here.”

Zecevic remains upbeat about his team’s comeback in the Sahara Conference. “We can and we will do better, “ he said ahead of their clash against Beira.

Beira, on the other hand, haven’t been much different from SLAC as they lost two of their three games after a promising start to the tournament, in which they pushed US Monastir to limits.

“We feel the same way. We have the same mindset coming to this tournament,” said Beira guard William Perry.

The winner of this encounter will boost their chances of staying alive in the BAL with sights on the playoffs in May in Kigali.

“These are two important games, we have to give everything we’ve got,” added Perry, one of Beira’s main offensive players, who averaged 16 points in three games.

“We want it badly because we think that we can do it,” Perry said about the prospect of Beira becoming the second Mozambican team – since Ferroviario de Maputo – to reach the BAL playoffs.

“We didn’t come here and thought that we were just happy to participate, that’s not how we think. We really think that Kigali is where we want to go.”

Zecevic, who says that his team can do better than it did so far, goes on saying that “defense will be crucial to progress in the BAL.”

“I don’t want to put too much pressure on our shoulders,” Perry stressed.

“But, yes, it’s like finals and we just have to give everything we got. It’s really a very important game for us on Saturday.”

Asked how Beira ended up in a must-win situation after leading AS Salé for most of their latest loss, Perry replied: “I don’t know if it was fatigue or something that we did wrong on. I don’t know if [fatigue], has influenced our game, but it might have played a part. They had two or three rest days, we had played a hard game the night before.”