Posted in News on Aug 20, 2007.
Following up on the award he picked up in May when he was voted as the coach of the season for the 2006 – 2007 season, the Chiefs coach was on hand at the swanky Hyatt hotel in Rosebank in Northern Johannesburg on Monday afternoon to attend the 2007 ABSA Cup Awards ceremony.
Ertugral and his Ajax Cape Town team won the event in May as they denied Mamelodi Sundowns from completing a league and cup double when they stunned the PSL Champions at the ABSA Stadium in Durban to lift the trophy. As a result the Chiefs coach collected his second prize for his achievement from last season when he was awarded the 2007 ABSA Cup coach of the tournament prize.
Ertugral looking to continue success
A beaming and excited Ertugral told Kaizerchiefs.com upon receiving his award which came with a R30 000 cash prize that the award actually belonged to his young Ajax team who defied the odds and the media in their run to be crowned South African Cup Champions.
“If you play good football you will win games and trophies” added Ertugral, he went on to say “Ajax played well through out the 2007 ABSA Cup and I feel that the team were deserved winners”.
Ertugral is confident that he will be back at the ABSA Cup awards next season as he hopes to retain his award, saying “I would most definitely like to duplicate my achievements with Ajax from last season and will be aiming to repeat those success with Chiefs this year. We will give it all we have to ensure that we can be back not just me but as a team at the 2008 ABSA Cup Awards ceremony, I am looking forward to when the ABSA Cup starts again which I am sure will be early next year”.
Coaches tribute
Along with Ertugral, a number of his charges from Ajax Cape Town who helped the Chiefs coach win the ABSA Cup, also picked up some of the individual awards up for grabs and their former coach praised the Ajax players for their achievements.
Ajax captain and former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper Hans Vonk was named as the player of the tournament beating fellow nominee and Ajax team mate Tshillo Tshinyama and won a healthy cash prize of R250 000 for his troubles.
Ertugral praised Vonk and said after the ceremony was over, “Hans was a real leader and lead from the front and set the standard fro the rest of the team, I must congratulate him on the way he played through out the ABSA Cup and he deserves this award”.
Also in line for the young player of the tournament awards, which would see the winner, win R50 000 worth of clothing from Nike, were Ajax’s Clifford Ngobeni and Nazeer Allie.
Ngobeni who was recently named PSL Jet Club rookie of the year for last season, piped Allie and Bloemfontein Celtics James Madidilane to the post as he won the young player award.
Ertugral said on the subject “both Nazeer and Clifford had an outstanding tournament and either of the them would have deserved the award, well done to Clifford who had and outstanding season and played some outstanding football for Ajax in 2006 – 2007”.
