It all starts here
It all starts here

Posted in News on Aug 21, 2006.

We rounded off our pre-season campaign with a four-nil victory over Maritzburg United on Friday evening at the FNB Stadium. It was not so much the result that has pleased me, I think it was more so the performance during the game and our overall workrate and commitment, which I found to be one of the reasons behind our performance against United.



I had a couple of reasons for wanting a final preparation match ahead of the season as it gave me one more opportunity to play around with my combinations and test out a number of players. One of the guys that I felt needed a full ninety-minute game was goalkeeper Ryan Wuest, although I had seen him in training, Friday’s game afforded me with the opportunity to seeing how well he can cope in a match environment.



His performance was impressive and he carried himself well as he made a number of useful saves which helped him to keep a clean sheet. Other guys such as Serge Djiehoua got a lengthy run in order to get his fitness back.



With the season in front of us one could say that the work really begins now, we have by going through a tough pre-season, laid the foundations to build a successful season which will have many joyous moments and hopefully very few sad ones.



It all starts for us this weekend when we take on Supersport United on Sunday in Tshwane (Pretoria), we will be looking to get out of the starting blocks fast and will not want to stutter on the opening day. I had the opportunity to check Supersport out when they took on and defeated via penalty kicks Orlando Pirates in the SAA Supa8 tournament over the past weekend.



There was something different about their game plan and it really amazed me to see how Pitso Mosimane has altered his team's approach to the game against Pirates - Supersport veered away from their usual game.



Last season Pitso played a very different game to his usual style against Pirates. They looked content to allowing the opposition to come at them and they sat back and absorbed whatever was thrown at them. It seemed as though they were relying more on Pirates making mistakes and then taking advantage of those slip-ups.



What I also noticed was that they played a very cautious counter attacking game. What is important to note is that their last game was a cup game and perhaps you can change your pattern around in a cup game, the dynamics of things are very different in a league game.



Supersport have in the past shown that they are a resilient team, that they usually up the ante against us and we need to guard against complacency and taking things for granted. One could say that Supersport are in a kind of a building phase of having lost a number of key players in the off season, which included Calvin Marlin and the tall Lungisani Ndlela to Sundowns.



Still they have the experience of new signing Andre Arendse to call upon as well as Ricardo Katza, Siboniso Gaxa and obviously the man who scored against Pirates Tony Tzabedze.



With regards to our team news as it stands we have Thabo Mooki who is still out injured, we have been monitoring the progress of Ditheko Mototo and it looks as though he might be at full fitness very soon. From what I understand even if he is fit he will be unavailable for the Supersport game. This is because of the fact that he picked up a red card against Orlando Pirates in the ABSA Cup Final, which means that he will have to serve a suspension.



I am still awaiting the final confirmation on the number of matches that he will miss as I know it, the norm is for a player to sit out two games. Should this be the case then he will most definitely miss the Supersport game. Like I said I am awaiting final word from the league on whether red cards collected at the end of last season do result in Suspensions at the beginning of the next season.



All in all I have to say that we have gone from strength to strength and are really looking good going into the opening day of the season. I am optimistic about our chances on Saturday but we need to guard against being boastful, as we need to enter the game with a level head.



For now that is all I have to add and all I can hope for is that we have as many of you coming to the game on Sunday as possible, we need all the support we can get to lift us to the start we want.

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