As Chiefs wound up their second week back at pre-season training and their first at the High Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria in Tshwane (Pretoria) on Friday, Amakhosi coach Vladimir Vermezovic pronounced himself satisfied with the progress made by his charges over the past twelve days.

Speaking to kaizerchiefs.com the Amakhosi mentor said “everything has been going along good, it was important for us to ensure that in this first period of pre-season training we did not have any players picking up injuries.”

With this in mind the coach further explained that the initial training programme had been planned to avoid any such occurrences, “as a result my technical team and I have been very careful and meticulous in the kind of training drills that we put the guys through and after a week of rigorous training everything is going well.”

According to the Chiefs coach as he further let in the Amakhosi have passed a very crucial stage in their pre-season programme, “the first ten days back are very important, this is the most difficult time in pre-season as you change your focus and plan ahead, but this is basic for us and we have managed to come through this difficult time.”

Missing from training with his teammates for the past week was Chiefs midfielder Mandla Masango, Vermezovic as he explained gave Masango time off after he had been heavily involved in the off season with South Africa u-23 team in their All Africa Games and Olympic Game Qualifying campaigns’.

“Mandla was given seven days off because he was playing for the national u-23 team, if we push him he can be un-useful for us for a long time during the season. So we gave him time off and he will be back with us on Monday.”