The Fifa Week has come and gone and while National Teams engaged in friendly games, World Cup and Continental qualifiers, the local leagues have been shut as a result.

To some teams the break was deserved due to stringent and hectic programmes while others relished the opportunity to have a pause in order to reset their ailing systems. It goes without saying that going back to the league programme is an advantage to the teams that didn’t supply players to the National Teams.

kaizerchiefs.com touched base with Head Coach Stuart Baxter to hear his views about the break and also share his perspective about the preparations for the upcoming Telkom Knockout Challenge battle with the revamped Bidvest Wits.

“The top of the agenda for us is all about the National Team players. We had eight in total of the players that we contributed to both Bafana Bafana and Zimbabwean National Team. We played in a friendly in the past week where we also rested Tefu Mashamaite as well as Abia Nale who had some study commitments.”

Stuart Baxter who has ample knowledge of National Team dynamics having coached England’s Under 19 (2002-2004), Bafana Bafana (2004-2005) and Finland (2008-2010) lamented the Telkom Knockout Challenge fixture against Wits.

“The players will travel overnight and will have to rest after a heavy schedule of the past week and half. Mind you, these players will still have to recuperate and at the same time we still need to integrate them back into the team mode. Interestingly we will only have 2hrs pre-match training with these players. Meanwhile we still have to deliberate on their conditions and plot out tactics for the game, which is a very strange situation to be in.”

Baxter who was already hard at work preparing for the team’s training session continued to describe the situation that his team is facing as abnormal in footballing sense; “Siphiwe Tshabalala looked uncomfortable against Kenya, I heard that he was feeling ‘dizzy’ and that is why he was substituted, Bernard Parker played full 90minutes in both Poland and Kenya games and with Itumeleng Khune being confronted by a family bereavement, the situation is not good for preparation of a cup game. We are planning the Wits game scenario without ‘Itu’ given his family responsibility and state of mind.”

“We try to win each game we play even if we are forced to prepare for this game under tough conditions. Eventually and not unless these matters are resolved, in future there will be problems between the teams, PSL and SAFA. If this scenario persists we run the risk of emulating the League Cup in England where teams have resolved to play youth and their fringe players because they don’t see it as worth the effort to risk their regular players”; added Baxter whose coaching experience dates back to 1985 when he coached Örebro SK in Sweden.

“As a team we always want to be competitive and I am sure these issues will be resolved speedily for sake of football” added the visibly concerned Wolverhampton born Kaizer Chiefs Head Coach.