It was with the Urban Warriors last season that Ertugral lead them to Cup glory and denied Mamelodi Sundowns a league and Cup double as they defeated Mamelodi Sundowns in the final. In addition to leading Ajax to Cup glory, he was also named as the coach of the tournament. He believes that a repeat of that success is possible if Chiefs duplicate their performance from the weekend.

No different

Ertugral could not be happier with the courage and fight shown by his team when they came from a goal down to score four goals in a twenty-minute second half blitz against Free State Stars, and he said of that performance looking ahead to the Friday evenings match. “To play away from home and go a goal down and then score four unanswered goals against a team who have been unbeaten in six league games at home takes some doing. When your team can accomplish something like that you have to commend them on their resilience and the fight within them, we need to take this same kind of tenaciousness with us to the ABSA Stadium on Friday”.

Delightful display

The coach was particularly pleased with the influence that his midfielders had on the match, and singled them out for special praise as he explained, “ I thought that we were able to hold up the ball for longer periods in the midfield. If you look at our goals it was stuff you do on the training ground, characterized by excellent build up work and fantastic finishing. Gerald scored two goals, Siphiwe Tshabalala was outstanding and David Mathebula was the man-of-the- match, Thuso Phala came on and almost scored and then created Mabhudi Khenyeza’s goal. As a coach what more can you ask of your midfield, the only thing I want is for consistency and for them to be as impactful in the next game.

Ajax task

It is to Ajax and the round of 32 of the Nedbank Cup that the Chiefs coach has affixed his gaze on and has got his preparations underway. Having recently played against Ajax has given the coach reason to be optimistic about Chiefs chances of progression to the next round of the competition. As he commented on Friday evenings game saying “Ajax are never going to be pushovers and we know that, we played them a few weeks ago and came out with our heads high after our performance in that match. So we know we have the ability to give them a run and we intend to try and wrap up the match in regulation time”.