Posted in News on Nov 26, 2007.
The game which forms part of the national team's preparations for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations, is not listed as an official friendly match but is instead classified as a practise match and players playing in the match will not have it registered as an official cap for South Africa.
Chiefs had goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune, defender Mokete Tsotetsi and midfielder Siphiwe Tshabalala called up for the game, with the Telkom Cup Knock Out Cup final on the weekend have the Amakhosi have decided to keep their players instead.
Big game
With Chiefs playing in their first cup final since the 2006 SAA Supa8 final in October last year, at the weekend against Mamelodi Sundowns at the Vodacom Loftus Stadium in Tshwane, Chiefs team manager Bobby Motaung felt that in order to avoid the team's preparations for the game disrupted by players being absent it would be better for them to continue preparing for the game with the rest of the team.
As Motaung added “we have a cup final to think about on Saturday and it will not help us having to release three key players to the national team for an unofficial match, if it was a FIFA date we would not have had a problem right now our preparations for the Telkom Knock Out Cup Final takes precedence”.
Logical step
Amakhosi coach Muhsin Ertugral speaking from his office at the Kaizer Chiefs Village after his team's morning training session on Monday, said that there could be no way that with a massive Cup Final coming up that he could even think of releasing his players.
Ertugral added “we have made a move to pull the guys out of the game and I think that it is a logical one on our side, if we let them go for the game it would have meant that I would have fundamentally have had them for one training session before we meet Sundowns on Saturday and it would be unthinkable for me to go into a cup final with out having had my full team to work with over the week”.
