Log leaders Kaizer Chiefs might lose their number 1 position temporarily as they will not be playing any official league games during the Africa Cup of Nations 2004, due to the fact that the club has more than three players representing the country during this year’s African soccer showpiece.

Jabu Pule, Stanton Fredericks, Patrick Mayo, John Moshoeu and David Kannemeyer will represent South Africa at the crucial tournament. Club Communications Manager, Putco Mafani announced that between, the 8th January 2004 to the 18th February 2004, Amakhosi will not be playing any league games and hence friendly games have been arranged to try and sustain the players’ match fitness levels.

“Obviously we are happy with our players going to Tunisia with the national squad to do national duty, and we wish them all the best together with the entire squad but we are equally concerned that our playing rhythm will be affected and that is why we are busy finalizing friendly games to keep our squad match fit”, said Mafani.

To begin this road-show of friendlies, Amakhosi will play Supersport United on Sunday, 18th January 2004 at the Jan Van Riebeck rugby stadium in Witbank at 4pm. “We are particularly pleased by the choice of a city that will be hosting this friendly since we have not been playing in Witbank for a long time. This is in line with the vision of taking our soccer to people at grass root level to incentives their loyalty and so the game will benefit our supporters in Mpumalanga in a special way because Supersport owe us a thing or two” added Mafani.

Supersport Utd will use this game to honour one of their legends, dribbling wizard Thomas “Chincha Guluva” Madigage, who has since retired from playing the game into coaching. Who can forget Madigage after the damage he caused to the Phefeni Boys when he mesmerised their defenders and led his team to the glorious Bobsave Cup final victory during the 1999/2000 season.

The last time the two clubs met Supersport UTD came out 1 nil victors at the Ellis Park stadium when they stole a crucial three points at the expense of the mighty Amakhosi on Wednesday, 5th November 2003. It is common knowledge that when these two teams meet it is the grass that suffers.

There are other friendly matches lined up for the other weekends but details thereof will be released in due course. Tickets for this one will be sold at the stadium for R20 adults and R10 juveniles.