Kaizer Chiefs made hard work of their Telkom Knockout game against Santos at the Newlands Stadium on Sunday afternoon, finally triumphing in a penalty shootout after the game had ended 0-0 after 120 minutes.

Overall it was the Soweto side who had the better of the game, having more ball possession and creating more chances on goal, but poor finishing let them down on numerous occasions - Knowledge Musona in particular was guilty of some rather amateur finishing.

The contest was closely fought early on, with the two sides evenly matched.

Chiefs had the first chance of the game after 14 minutes when Jimmy Tau stormed down the right flank, cutting neatly inside but firing his shot straight at Lee Langeveldt.

Jurie Basie had two chances for Santos as he fired in a volley from an audacious angle which nearly caught out Chiefs keeper Arthur Bartman and then sent a header into the ground and over the bar from a 17th minute corner kick.

Six minutes later Musona nearly put AmaKhosi ahead when his header from a corner kick glanced off the top of the cross-bar. Chiefs then went on to create a couple more half chances, but again a lack of accuracy on the parting shot left them score-less.

The second half saw Chiefs looking to camp out in the Santos half in order to build attacks and carve out goal chances.

But Santos began to look more threatening on the counter-attack, with Erwin Isaacs, Graham King and Basie looking dangerous.

The game remained there for the taking from either side, but neither goal was threatened as Abia Nale shot over for Chiefs and Phikolethu Spelman sent a snap shot wide of target.

With six minutes to go Musona wasted a great chance for the visiting side when he failed to get contact on the ball from only eight yards out and then two minutes later he missed an even better chance when he side-footed wide from Nale’s pin-point cross.

Santos also applied pressure to the Chiefs goal late on, especially through Isaacs, but could not find a way past the AmaKhosi defence, forcing the game to go in to extra time.

The Peoples’ Team had the first chance of extra time when Spelman’s sweetly struck shot saw Bartman making a full-stretch shot to tip the ball over the bar.

At the other end Langeveldt made a superb save from Nale, although he was ruled off-side.

The closing minutes of extra time remained open with the play switching from end to end, Santos’ hard work catching up with them as the likes of Isaacs and Spelman went down with cramp.

But after 120 minutes of sweat and toil, there was still no separating the two teams; the game going into the lottery of a penalty shoot-out.

Both Spelman and Ricardo Skippers sent their kicks over the bar, before Nale held his nerve to send Chiefs into the last eight, the Gauteng side triumphing 4-2 in the shoot-out.

TEAMS

Santos: Langveldt, Ntloana, W Arendse, Otieno, Skippers; Basie (Rodgers 66’), S Arendse (Gabonamong 100’), T Arendse, King (Tsabedze 80’), Isaacs, Spelman

Chiefs: Bartman; Tau, Isaacs, Rooi, Masenemela, Dladla, Yende, Masango (Nhleko 61’), Nale; Lebese (Sibeko 107’), Musona (Torrealba 104’).