When Itumeleng Khune had to be withdrawn at the eleventh hour when The Amakhosi drew in midweek with Amazulu, Emille Baron was called into stand in for the young keeper. In what was his third game of the season Baron did well until his copy book was some what blotched when Shoes Moshoeu, was able to find a 56th minute equalizer for The Usuthu up until then and after that Baron put on a display demonstrating that he was know where near past his best. His performance against Amazulu also intensified the race for the number one jersey at the Amakhosi and has given Muhsin Ertugral a pleasant headache, with Chiefs next game in Cape Town Baron would like for nothing more than to take between the poles in his home town for Sundays clash in the mother city.

Through the pain

Prior to Wednesday evening’s game Baron had been injured in training, when he was accidentally kicked in the eye during a training game and his injury might have complicated matters for Muhsin Ertugral. As third choice keeper Markus Bocsker has returned to Austria for treatment while he too battles with injury, Baron had no choice but to take to the field as he said to kaizerchiefs.com “during training on Monday I got a kick to my eye and my eyelid was severely cut and I had a lot of swelling. I thought to myself not another injury; on Wednesday when I was asked to start I knew that I had to put this problem behind me as this was an opportunity for me to get back into the starting eleven”.

Raising the bar

Emille is pleased by the success that Itumeleng Khune has had over the past few months, and believes that Khune’s performances in goal have helped raised the level of competition for the keepers jersey at Chiefs. He explained “Khune has performed really magnificently since he first made his debut in August, he has raised the bar and I feel that the way he is playing it has certainly shown the quality of keepers we have at the team and the kind of coaching we get. Competition is always good for the team, if guys are competing for places then they will put in extra effort and up the work rate, that is exactly what is happening with us at the moment”.

Sound showing

Against Amazulu Emille was on course for his third clean of the season sheet after going through the first forty five minutes of the match by keeping his goal intact, in the second half he conceded his first goal of the season in rather unfortunate circumstances. As he adds “I saw the ball coming towards me and went out for it, I did feel that I had it then the guy who Derrick was in front of pushed him forward and we collided with each other. From there Shoes Moshoeu was not going to miss, the goal was preventable and we were very unlucky to concede it”.

Despite that Emille was his usual sound self in goal and multiple saves in the first half, and used his better judgement to good effect when coming off his line to clear the danger of Shoes Moshoeu on the break. Speaking of his performance Emille said “I was happy to get the time out on the park, making those saves in the first half helped my confidence and got me settled. I am disappointed at having conceded the goal, given that my last game was on the 21st October I can say that I have a lot of positives to take out of this game with me to Cape Town”.

Home coming

Playing on Sunday against Santos in Cape Town, which will mark Chiefs first official match in the Mother City since March 2006 is most definitely on Emille’s mind since becoming a Chiefs player in 2004 he has as yet not featured for The Amakhosi in his home town. He spoke of his desire to play in Cape Town saying “I am not a sure starter on Sunday but I would love to play in Cape Town as I would like for my friends and family to see me live in action and I can’t remember when was the last time I played a top flight game there”.