While the focus of most of the world has been on the up coming MTN CAF Africa Cup of Nations Ghana 2008, Olympic and Euro 2008 qualifying games, it means that many clubs around the world have had to conduct training sessions over the past week with skeleton squads.

The Amakhosi though have been somewhat fortuitous having just three players on international duty, with Itumeleng Khune in Klerksdorp preparing for an all-important Olympic qualifying game against Ghana. Cyril Nzama is getting ready to reacquaint himself with his old Chiefs team mate and friend Collins Mbesuma, when Bafana Bafana host Zambia in a Nations Cup qualifier at Newlands in Cape Town on Sunday. While David Obua will be hoping to help Uganda earn a big win against Niger, which could see the Cranes qualify for through the back door for the nations cup.

Apart from the three players who are away on international duty, Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertugral and his technical team made up of his assistant Fani Madida, goalkeeper coach Rainer Dinkelacker and the club's medical staff have used the past week to work on the player’s physical fitness. As the club does not have any games this weekend the international matches being played meant that Ertugral could run the rule over his players, put them through a number of physically grueling and demanding sessions. The Chiefs coach also implemented special programmes to help the likes of Mandla Masango make strides in his bid to get back to fitness.

Physically fit

It was a tough week for the Kaizer Chiefs first team as Ertugral implemented a tough and very physical training regime from Monday through to Friday, which saw the Chiefs players sessions being conducted both indoors and out over the week. “We had the chance this past week to work on the physical aspects of our game, we made the most of this opportunity and we worked the guys really hard” said Ertugral.

While the focus this week has been all about improving the team's physical condition, the coming one according to Ertugral, who pronounced himself extremely happy with the outcome of the past weeks physical drills, will be more technical.

As he further commented “once in a while you need to shift focus away from just doing tactical work and put more attention on conditioning yourself and that is what we did. The guys have the weekend to get their energy back and on Monday we will change focus and start preparing for our next league game on the 16th September against SuperSport United. Things get more tactical and analytical from Monday as we target SuperSport”.

Injury progress

Ertugral expressed further satisfaction with the fact that Masango had made big strides in his bid to gain full fitness, and is hoping that the young midfielder will be able to start full training on Monday. As the Chiefs coach further added “I must add that we have proceeded with caution over the past two weeks with Mandla since he was concussed in a practice game just prior to our league encounter with Cosmos. A head injury is a very delicate situation and we needed to proceed with the utmost of caution, he did some light raining in the past two weeks and we have penciled in him to begin training on Monday”.

Even though Masango will be back at training early next week, it is no guarantee that he will feature in the game against SuperSport, as Ertugral added “the first step is that he is back at training and from there on we will have to see how he progresses session by session. I feel that we will only be in a position to make a firm decision on whether or not he can play late next week”.