Post-view: Jomo Cosmos and Ajax Cape Town

The game against Jomo Cosmos was always going to be crucial following a last minute loss against Bloemfontein Celtic away. It was very important to return back to winning ways and I was pleased with the player’s performance.

Reneilwe Letsholonyane had to be pulled out and something that nearly destabilized our plans. It affected our rhythm in particular in the midfield where he was operating. We were all glad that injuries sustained by him, Tshifiwa Mmbooi and Nkosinathi Nhleko was not that serious and all the players played in our next game against Ajax Cape Town.

The reports ahead of our visit to Cape Town were dominated by the supporter behavior at the stadium when we met them in the MTN8. The Club has since came with mechanisms to address this and it was reflected in the way our supporters behaved at Newlands.

We were aware ahead of the game that Ajax Cape Town is missing a couple of players who are campaigning in the World Cup in Egypt. We also knew that they would be tired following their tough midweek fixture in Rustenburg on Wednesday, three days before our fixture. Once again I was proud of my players as they played according to our instructions.

The turning point in that game though was the save Arthur Bartman pulled with the penalty. The game is not won when the score is 2-0, so if they had scored then it might have caused problems for us from the psychological point of view. Bartman has brought lot of stability in our defence and as the Technical Team we are satisfied with his contribution. Looking back at the decision to bring him to Kaizer Chiefs, we did not even take an hour after our doctors confirmed the injury to Itumeleng Khune.

Back to the game people having been saying, “Chiefs is back”, honestly speaking as the Technical Team were always satisfied with the way the team was playing even though we were struggling to win games. For us the win against Ajax was just one game and there are still lots of games to play in the league.

Macufe Cup

This week the league will take a break due to FIFA week. For us we will be traveling to participate in the Macufe Cup to honour our game against Bloemfontein Celtic. People have termed it as a friendly match, but for us there is nothing friendly about the game and we play all our games to win. The game is also going to give is an opportunity to play some of the players who have not been featuring for one reason or another.

I have already been told that Macufe is a festival and there will be musicians from abroad who will be performing there. From the Club’s point of view we are delighted to be playing a part in such a big event and we are looking forward to what is going to be an electrifying atmosphere in Bloemfontein as it happened when we played them in the league.

U-20 World Cup

The national U-20 should be congratulated for the way they performed in Egypt. It was unfortunate they did not proceed to the next round after putting such a fight against Ghana. I was very impressed by the standard of the tournament.

Bafana Bafana

Siphiwe Tshabalala is the only player from us who has been selected for the national team and I would like to wish him and the whole team all the best against Norway and Iceland.

Injury Update

Itumeleng Khune and Valery Nahayo are still out with injuries and they will not be rushed until they complete full rehabilitation.

Dovidenja!

Vladimir Vermezovic