After months of rehabilitation work and endless hours training on his own in the gym, Chiefs goalkeeper Emile Baron began the next step on the road to full recovery from a shoulder operation he under went in May this year.

On Friday morning Emile trained with Chiefs goalkeeper coach Rainer Dinkelacker, and the rest of the teams goalkeepers, which included Rowen Fernandez. Baron underwent the operation in May to repair a damaged rotator cuff in his shoulder, which he had injured a few years ago while still playing in Norway.

Amakhosi goalie coach Rainer Dinkelacker was pleased to have an addition to his crew for training on Friday morning adding, “I could see from Emile’s face that he was happy to back on the field and it was a pleasure to have him back”. Dinkelacker is adamant that he will increase the intensity of Emile’s training sessions on a session-by-session basis.

“On Friday we allowed him to do some of the introductory exercise with us, it was all about him being able to do simple things like catch the ball, we were aiming to get him to feel comfortable behind the ball,” said Dinkelacker.

Rainer further added “we will fully test his recovery once we begin diving exercises and he is jumping around and landing on the ground on the operated shoulder, if he comes through those then we will know he is fully fit. For now though we will take things one day at a time, he has begun this part of his recovery in the right direction and we will continue building on what we did on Friday in the next couple of weeks”.

The Kaizer Chiefs medical team are expecting Emile to be fully match fit towards the end of October, Emile’s recovery is a welcome boost for Chiefs as they begin to bring their title aspirations back on line.