For Muhsin Ertugral victory over Sundowns on Wednesday evening would mean a fifth consecutive victory for him over The Brazilians, adding to the four wins he managed in the league and two in the cup over Gordon Ingesund’s men last season another would see him prove that he has Sundowns well and truly covered.

Ertugral goes into this game having almost a full-strength squad and has made the most of his good fortune by brining back into the starting line up Siphiwe Tshabalala. The Bafana Bafana midfielder had been out of action for three weeks nursing an injury and will give Chiefs something extra on the left side of midfield on Wednesday evening.

Tshabalala Trump Card

Siphiwe Tshabalala is the only new inclusion in the Chiefs starting eleven from the Bloemfontein Celtic game and replaces Obua out wide on the left. The Ugandan starts from the substitutes bench while Mandla Masango has been omitted from the match day 18.

Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertugral kept the face that Siphiwe Tshabalala would be available for this all-important match up close to his chest, and revealed that Tshabalala would be able to weave his magic on Wednesday prior to his team's departure for the stadium from their hotel.

Tshabalala, who was named as the man of the match during his last outing for the Amakhosi when they beat SuperSport United on the 28th October in a Telkom Cup game - a match in which he found his first goal for Chiefs - is looking to repay the coach's faith in playing him with a well rounded performance.

Tshabalala said “The only thing on my mind is to get out there and give it my best shot. Sundowns are Sundowns, you have to bring your best game when you play them and that is what I intend to do. I am not really worried that my last match was 17 days ago, as I do feel that I could have even played on the weekend against Celtic”.

Ertugral high five

Muhsin Ertugral has been consistently questioned by the media over the past week as to what his secret to defeating the defending PSL Champions is, and his answer has remained the same as he has regularly said: “There is no secret formula, it is all in your mind - if you believe you can do it then you can beat them. We cannot shy away from the fact that Sundowns have some of the best players in the country in their team.

"You look at Godfrey Sapula and Esrom Nyandoro, these are world class competitors, so we know that we have our work cut out for us against them.”

Questioned further about whether or not he will be holding anything back on Wednesday, given that Chiefs will be facing Sundowns in a few weeks time in the Cup final, his answer was: “Right now what is in front of us is a game against Sundowns and nothing else, it is our aim to get three points and then we will take it from there. Today the game of football is such that you cannot hide anything and we will not do that on Wednesday, instead we will play our normal game and go all out for the win”.

Teams:

Kaizer Chiefs: (4-4-2) 32. Itumeleng Khune, 2. Jimmy Tau, 3. Onismor Bhasera, 4. Cyril Nzama, 6. Fabian McCarthy, 8. Tinashe Nengomasha, 14. Siphiwe Tshabalala, 12. Thabo Mooki, 18. Arthur Zwane, 27. Gerald Sibeko, 17. Shaun Bartlett




Substitutes: 1. Markus Bocsker, 7. Kaizer Motaung Junior, 26. Thuso Phala, 13. David Obua, 5. Mabhudi Khenyeza, 29. Moketi Tsotetsi, 33. Ditheko Mototo

Coach: Muhsin Ertugral


Assistant Coach: Fani Madida


Goalkeeper Coach: Rainer Dinkelacker