Posted in News on Sep 03, 2007.
Tshabalala expressed his relief over the weekend to kaizerchiefs.com that he was finally able to turn out in an official competitive game for Chiefs.
Even though The Amakhosi ended up losing to the Students, Tshabalala had done his bit to impress huge crowd that was in attendance at the Olimpia Park Stadium in Rustenburg.
With dreadlocks flowing, Tshabalala was a most recognizable figure in full flight on the park once he had entered the fray, and it did not take him long to get into the thick of the action as he dazzled the Wits defense with his bags of tricks and his pace.
Tshabalala linked up well with Kaizer Motaung Junior, another second half substitute, who was also making a long-awaited comeback from injury against Wits. He showed his true class in the 74th minute when he picked up a short pass from Kaizer Junior and directed a perfect cross towards Shaun Bartlett who rose and headed the ball powerfully towards goal only for Moeneeb Josephs to spectacularly deny Bartlett on the line. On his showing on Friday evening it is evident that Tshabalala intends to live up to his pre transfer billing form Free State Stars to Chiefs, as one of the most entertaining and enterprising midfielders in the country.
Much-awaited debut
Having to sit on the sidelines for the past couple of months was sheer agony for Tshabalala, it was made worse when he was injured during a Vodacom Challenge match against Orlando Pirates back in July and that injury fundamentally meant that he would miss both the Telkom Charity Cup and Chiefs two first league games of the season.
The dynamic Tshabalala is now happy to have put his personal injury crisis behind him and is a happy man to be playing first team football again “we might not have won the game on Friday evening but getting back out onto the field was something really special for me. It was made more important by the fact that the Wits game apart from signaling my return to official competition was also my debut for the club”.
Future perfection
Having been able to shrug off the injuries which have set him back in recent times, Tshabalala is aiming to put in an impressive display over the next couple of weeks of training and is looking towards gaining a starting berth for Chiefs next game PSL outing on the 16th September when they travel to Attridgeville to take on SuperSport United.
Tshabalala explains further “coming onto the field it did not take me too long to get into the groove of the game, I fitted in well and I now do believe that I am fit enough to play a full ninety minutes. Obviously the decision to play me or not will be the coaches I will over the next week and a half use the training sessions and the practice matches that we have to convince him that I can start the game against SuperSport”.
Bafana Bafana ambitions
Tshabalala is also looking further beyond just getting Chiefs back to winning ways, he also intends to win back his place in the Bafana Bafana squad. Like he was back in 2006 when Bafana Bafana competed at the 2006 MTN CAF Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, he fully intends to join Bafana when they jet off to participate in the 2008 MTN CAF Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana.
Prior to his injury, Tshabalala was a regular feature in the squad even though most of his caps came while he was still playing in the MVELA Golden League for Free State Stars, as he explains playing Premier League football will only make him an asset for the national team.” Now that I have made a gradual come back to playing club football I need to use the game time that I will hopefully get over the next few months, to get my career with the national team back on course.
My long-term ambition is to play in the 2010 Fifa World Cup, in the more immediate future I would like to go to Ghana next year for the African Nations cup. The only way I will be able to get to Ghana is if I am at my best for Chiefs over the next few months, with the assistance and guidance of my coach and team mates I fully intend to be on the top of my game by the time the nations cup rolls around”.
