When Shaun Bartlett decided to take on Pirates defender Destin Makita in the 36th minute of Saturday’s derby, few thought that the veteran striker would have the legs to beat the Buccaneers rear guard. But Bartlett amazed Makita by out sprinting him and getting the ball to David Mathebula who tucked it over the line for the games only goal, but Bartlett’s motivation for the match came hours before hand at the Chiefs team hotel.

The Chiefs skipper used one of the Amakhosi staff member’s laptop to watch some of his old videos from his time in the English Premier League off the popular internet site youtube. Bartlett watched himself score goals against Manchester United, Liverpool and there was that special one against Leicester City that was voted as the goal of the season in England in 2001 – 2002. Bartlett also watched a video clip of a motivational speech by the famous Hollywood Al Pacino from the movie ‘Any Given Sunday’, where Pacino who plays an American Football coach rallies his team during a crucial game with some moving words.

Big game

Bartlett has had a good time of it since joining Chiefs in matches against Pirates he famously scored an injury time equalizer in December 2006 against Pirates, in what was the final game played at the FNB Stadium before its FIFA World Cup make over. Speaking about raising his game for the big game Bartlett added, “I have been fortunate enough to have played in many big matches at both club and national team level. It is important to use that to help me in these kinds of matches and seeing all those old games, kind of helped me roll back the years and got me going”.

Celtic torment

Next on the bill for Chiefs are Bloemfontein Celtic and Bartlett will need no special inspiration for this game, as he will draw on Saturday’s performance to bring out the best in him. Speaking of the upcoming Celtic encounter he quipped “they have had some good results recently and come into the match of a two nil win over Wits”, Bartlett then warned of his team being over confident saying. “On our side we need to be aware of being too over confident of winning the game we do come into this match off the back of an important win, caution must be exercised and we need to do all the hard work over again”.