Another draw is what most of you are probably thinking after our encounter with Ajax Cape Town in Kimberley on Sunday ended in deadlock, to me the game was not a power packed one like our previous league meeting against Jomo Cosmos last Wednesday.

I know I have said this before and I will say it again, if you watched our game against Cosmos it was a free flowing game and one in which we were able to string together a number of passes and played entertaining and exciting soccer. Unfortunately we were not able to do that in the game against Ajax because we were faced with the same monster that we did when we played against Benoni Premier United a week ago.

That monster is a poor pitch. It was very difficult to control the ball on the surface at the ABSA Stadium in Kimberley, it was poorly grassed as well as being very uneven in places.

Regardless of those complaints we have to play on these surfaces and there is nothing I can do about that fact, the game itself lacked a lot in the way of much goal mouth action from both teams. We had two great chances to find a goal against Ajax - one of which came off a Tinashe Nengomasha long-range shot, which Hans Vonk saved spectacularly. Kaizer Junior was also unfortunate not to have gotten his third goal of the season when he had a header bound for the goal cleared of the goal line by an Ajax defender.

On the other end Rowen Fernandez who was our Captain for the game, given this responsibility as Cyril Nzama, whom I felt is not in the best form at the moment, needed to make room at the back for now. I am sure that Cyril will work towards finding his form which will also help him to get back in the team, in the mean time Rowen has assumed the captaincy.

Rowen had a good game and guessed correctly as he made an inspired save to stop Nathan Paulse from giving Ajax the lead, from the penalty spot. One just needed to see his celebration after saving the spot kick to see just how much it meant to him.

Our next game is against Wits on Wednesday we now have the advantage of playing the game on a carpet, which is the FNB Stadium so the onus is on us to play the way we did against Jomo Cosmos but be more disciplined at the back.

We will have to show the same kind of enterprise we demonstrated when attacking against Cosmos, it will be as important for us to create the same number of chances we did when playing against Cosmos.

Speak to you again on Wednesday.

Yours in the name of Sport

Ernst Middendorp


Kaizer Chiefs Coach