At the start of the season few people thought it would be possible for us to have taken home any silver ware, still here we stand on the threshold of history with the possibility of us winning the ABSA Cup for the first time since the tournament changed names a few years ago.

Us reaching the final is a gift to all the supporters who through hot and cold came down to the FNB Stadium and stood behind us, to this thousands who kept on cheering when we were minutes away from being knocked out against Mvela League team City Pillars. Victory on Saturday will be for all of you because with out your voices and the spirit of those who wanted to be at the stadium and could not be we would not be in Durban preparing for this final.

I decided to start off this address by thanking all of you for sticking by us and remember should we be victorious it is not just Kaizer Chiefs players who are Cup Kings each and every one of you are in your own way are Cup Kings and Queens. On matters surrounding the game I think that for us to win tomorrow we need to go into the game with the correct mindset. It is important for us not to be over excited at being at a cup final and do things that we will regret, we need to be calmness personified as we take on Pirates.

Personally with the guys we have not had talk about pressure and what a big game it is, every player knows what the occasion represents for him and as we have emphasized throughout the week team work wins matches. We have put in a lot of hard work for this game and you always get rewarded on what you put into something and I am confident that The Almighty will reward us with victory on Saturday after our tireless preparation for this game.

In terms of injuries we are free of that going into the game we will have our best eleven out on the field on Saturday afternoon, as has been the case through out the season serial cup finalist. The likes of Thabo Mooki, Rowen Fernandez, Fabian McCarthy and captain Cyril Nzama’s experience at this level will rub off on the new comers to such and occasion such as Ditheko Mototo and Jimmy Tau.

For Jimmy I don’t think he could have wished for a better way to end off his first season in Gold and Black this is a way for him to sign off with a high note from 2005 – 2006. I personally don’t like signalling out individuals we will need our regular consistent performers to be disciplined and play like they have the desire to win.

With around twenty fours left to game time there is not much more to do as most of our preparation work on the training ground has been taken care, we will now relax for the next couple of hours and get our minds settled. We do have a few more discussions with the players where we will hand out the individual tasks as well as inform the guys as to who our starting eleven will be on Saturday. Picking your final eleven for such a game is never easy and it is not a task I am looking forward to but I have a clear idea as to what we need to do to win on Saturday and that has made deciding on the final eleven easier.

See you all at the ABSA Cup Final, all roads lead to the ABSA Stadium.

Yours at the Cup Final Ernst Middendorp