The Citizens narrowly missed out on just the second piece of silverware in their history following a penalty shootout loss to Matsatsantsa, with consecutive defeats in the league thereafter compounding the Cape club’s woes.
And their captain admits it has not been an easy two weeks since.
“The MTN8 loss is still in my head, and at the back of my mind, the heartbreak of it, and I’m sure it’s still playing in the heads of the guys,” the City skipper said.
“I’m still sulking, I won’t even lie. If we played badly or didn’t deserve to win it, you get over it really quickly, but that fact that we deserved to win it, but didn’t, makes it a bitter pill to swallow. But we are professionals and have to deal with it, and make sure we move on to bigger and better things ahead.
“It’s life, we have to go on and make sure we go ahead and defend the Telkom Cup – that’s the most important thing at the moment.
“So yes, I’m still dealing with it, but know I have to be a big boy and get over it.”
The MTN8 final presented coach Benni McCarthy a shot at silverware at the first time of asking, with the failure further adding to Johannes’ disappointment.
“What makes it harder to accept is that I wanted the coach to lift his first cup – I’ve been saying that since he got here – I want to see him succeed, and I want him to do well,” he said. “So it wasn’t about me losing it, it was more about him losing, and that tore me up even more.”
City will look to halt their three-match winless run when they face off against Baroka FC in the Telkom Knockout Last 16 on Sunday afternoon.