Currently playing at the top of his game, The Amakhosi’s influential and difficult to contain central attacking midfielder David Mathebula will be rubbing his hands, as he looks forward to his next assignment for Chiefs which will be an Absa Premier League clash against Black Leopards.

Being a native of the Limpopo Province and having spent time playing for the other big Limpopo team namely Dynamos, a match against Leopards holds many personal battles for Mathebula.

In essence it is a derby for Mathebula as he hails from the town of Elim in the Limpopo Province. Doing well against Leopards gives him the opportunity to hold one up over his provincial rivals. Given the 24-year-old's recent form few would bet against him turning on the magic once more when Chiefs and Leopards clash on Saturday.

Biting back

Mathebula might not score many goals but he has managed to find the back of the net on two occasions when up against Leopards. In fact since joining Chiefs at the start of the 2004 – 2005 season Mathebula found goals against Leopards in consecutive seasons in league games against them. Last season was the first in his three seasons as a Chiefs player that the highly gifted midfielder did not manage to find the back of the net in a game against Lidoda Duvha. Ironically his first goal as a Chiefs player came against Leopards on the 11th December 2004 in a game which Chiefs won 3-0 - Mathebula opened the scoring and his goal at the Thohoyandou Stadium was followed by two more from Collins Mbesuma.

Dynamite rivalry

As to why he plays particularly well against Leopards, Mathebula at first is at pains to find an explanation, saying, “it is not like I prepare differently when I know that I could be playing against Leopards. To me I give as much in training and during the game as I would in any other game, I will say that something does overcome me and it makes me play like a monster against them”.

After giving it further thought Mathebula comes up with a possible explanation, “what I think it could be” adds Mathebula and then continues on “one reason could be that as I once played for Dynamos and we had shared a very intense rivalry with Leopards. Whenever we played them in the Limpopo derby it was more important to us than any other game losing was not an option. Could be part of the reason as well as I hail from a different town in the Limpopo Province has perhaps meant that I am more determined to do well against Leopards who come from the bigger city in Venda which is Thohoyandou”.

Prowling Leopards

Leopards may be at the danger end of the league table at the moment, but that has not put David into a comfort zone as he is wary of Lidoda Duvha’s ability to hit back, “do not be fooled by Leopards” said Mathebula. Before further commenting “they have in the past shown especially against us that when they are down they play their best football, we saw that when we played them in April this year towards the end of last season.

No matter what their form is coming into a game against Chiefs will be a huge motivation for them, we have seen in this fixture in the past that when you least expect them to they will jump out at you and catch you by surprise. We have to ensure that they do not spring any surprises on us and the way to do that will be to concentrate through out the game, and do exactly what we did against Arrows and that is to get an early goal”.