Posted in News on Sep 10, 2007.
While Chiefs have been winless against SuperSport in a league game since May 2005, the diminutive Chiefs midfielder Gerald Sibeko believes that all of that will change when the teams come face to face at Vodacom Loftus this weekend.
Sibeko himself believes that the Amakhosi have a lot to be confident about this season, and given the way the team is currently performing, they should be in with a real shout of challenging for serious honours this season.
While SuperSport have been Chiefs nemesis over the last few years, for Sibeko Sunday cannot come around soon enough as he has stated that he always enjoys playing in matches against Matsasantsa.
It is the competitive nature of matches between Chiefs and United that makes this game so attractive for Sibeko. With SuperSport making an indifferent start to the season, the 27-year-old Sibeko who made his Chiefs debut in October 2000, believes that Chiefs will fight to turn around the recent spate of losses to United with a convincing win.
Second start
Sibeko who has played in over eighty-one matches for Chiefs in the eight seasons that he has been a Chiefs player, has so far been part of every Chiefs game squad during the current season. He started the game on the 15th August when Chiefs opened up the 2007-08 season with a 2-0 win away from home against Benoni Premier United. During during Chiefs next game, a 1-1 draw with Cosmos in Durban, Sibeko was on the bench but did not see any game time.
His most recent appearance for The Amakhosi came on the 31st August when Chiefs lost in agonizing circumstances to BidVest Wits in Rustenburg. Sibeko came on in that game as a 55th minute substitute replacing Thabo Mooki. He is though confident of being able to start the game on Saturday and is further confident that he could play out the full ninety minutes, as he said. “I have been putting in a lot of hard work on the training ground and the coach has seen that I am ready to fight for a place in the starting line up, I do believe that I have done good when ever I have been given playing time this seasons.
Playing against SuperSport on Sunday will be great because it is when I come up against strong, creative and tough opponents, it brings out the best in me”.
Time for a win
Sibeko has always looked forward to playing against SuperSport. While The Amakhosi might not have had the best of results against them in league games in recent times, Chiefs have been able to record a number of wins in cup games over them, which included last season's SAA Supa8 Final.
Sibeko said “people seem to get very nervous when a game against SuperSport nears and for obvious reasons, and that is because they have been dominant over us in recent seasons. We are at the moment playing good football and have been very dominant in all the games that we have played this season so far, so it is only a matter of time before everything falls into place”.
Sibeko and his teammates are ready to put up a fight against United on Sunday and are hopeful of rewriting Chiefs history against SuperSport, as he further explained. “This is a new season and a new beginning for us and we want to try and achieve a double dose of victories in the league over them by winning both home and away, nothing stops us from going out there and converting our first couple of chances and making certain of the win and kill off the game as contest early on”.
