Posted in News on Mar 12, 2007.
In all my time as a coach in this country I have never seen fans rally around a team the way the supporters took to the team on Saturday at the ABSA Cup Stadium, and before the game while we carried out various social responsibility programmes in Durban. The atmosphere inside the stadium was unbelievable and who could not win a match contested in a cauldron of colour and noise that the ABSA Stadium was turned into by the wonderful Chiefs and Celtic supporters.
The players, I felt played with a lot of character, and to put on a performance like they did coming off the back of a week that was tumultuous to say the least, the guys need to be credited for the result. I must add the players responded well to me during my first few training sessions, and they were able to carry out the tasks assigned to them with the professionalism associated with the kind of calibre of players that they are. Many people have asked me who I thought was the best player on Saturday, my policy is not single out individuals but commend all the guys on a good team display and it is only playing like a team that we will be able to achieve results like the one we did against Celtic.
Although the score line against Celtic was an emphatic one, I think we need to keep calm at this stage and remember that we are in a reconstruction phase. For us the important thing is to be able to put on a performance like Saturday’s one week in and week out. We might not win by four goals every week, but we should be able to put in the same kind of effort, and maybe the margin of victory could be smaller but the important thing is that a win is a win.
Having gotten off to a perfect start at Chiefs, my aim with that of my team will be to ensure that we can keep this up for at least the next six games. We will be able to achieve these results again and again if we work hard and stick to our game plan.
We do have the next couple of weeks free as our next league game is against Moroka Swallows on April 1. Having won against Celtic, it would have been ideal for us to have had a game this coming weekend so that we could have kept up the momentum. Had we been in this kind of a situation a year ago or so I would not have been a happy man, but the South African football landscape has changed somewhat and we do now have is a competitive reserve league. What I together with my technical team will do is give a number of first team regulars the opportunity to keep match fit by participating in reserve team games, possibly not in the next reserve game but maybe in a week’s time when the reserves play Pirates and after that against the Wits reserves.
It is of paramount importance for the players to keep match fit and perhaps they might not play the full ninety minutes, but I will give them some time with the reserves. There is also the Nelson Mandela Museum Challenge game in Port Elizabeth at the end of the month which will keep us warm in this lull period with out any games.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I am more than pleased by the way things have started out for me at Chiefs, and more than anything I was pleased on Saturday evening to see happy faces and cheering fans in the crowd at the ABSA Stadium. Furthermore I am pleased for the players as they were under a lot of pressure and they responded to the pressure in the way they know best with a comprehensive win against a very tough and well organized Celtic team.
Many had predicted a Celtic win but in the end the hard work ethic of this team shone through and I am confident that in the months to come, they will improve and keep their fans smiling.
