As I left the Newlands rugby stadium on Monday morning after a joint press conference I had along with my counterpart from Manchester United Sir Alex Ferguson, I could not but think about our encounter with United on Tuesday evening at the Newlands Stadium.

Firstly though I must add that to have met some of the Manchester United touring party the likes of the legendary Sir Bobby Charlton and their coach Sir Alex Ferguson. I have had the opportunity of spending some quality time with Sir Alex and have had the chance of talking to him on a host of issues and it has been very educational for me to have had the opportunity to have spoken to a true football coaching legend.

With all the niceties and the pleasantries out of the way the business end of the Vodacom Challenge begins for us, the game against Manchester United and its result will bare testimony to how well we have been preparing for the match.

Every body by now is aware of what they did against Pirates on Saturday and we need to make sure that there is no repeat of that result against us. Pirates played a very strange game and although they might have dominated in the possession stakes, they still landed up losing by four goals which is a real hammering in any language. The reality of the situation is that the gap between South African football and that of the average team in Europe was laid bare at Kings Park for all to see, we need to be open in our thinking and admit that there is a long way for South African club teams to reach a level where by the can compete successfully against their European counterparts.

Really at this stage I would not like to go into all of that now as the issue of taking the game forward in this country is really for another discussion. Right now what it comes down to is how do we approach the game on Tuesday night and what outcome are we hoping for, the truth is that we don’t want to end the game off and say it was a learning curve. If we do that than really we have not achieved much what we want is to give Manchester United an even contest where by we give as good as we get, our team has been in pre season training for the past three weeks. The amount of progress made by the guys is really commendable and the input and the way they have all approached this period has made things much easier for the entire coaching staff.

So with the way we have prepared I am fairly confident that we can hold our own against United, we have experience players who in their own right can compete at the highest level possible, obviously Shaun Bartlett’s experience and particularly the fact that he has played against them before will work in our favour. For us it is a case of keeping cool not being over excited but keeping our head on the ground and play our normal game, we are not focusing on any particular Man United players by saying we need to be aware of Ryan Giggs or Paul Scholes.

Instead we need to know that they are strong down the wings and like to use the fact that their players are taller and some what physically stronger to their advantage, they have a lot of young players who are quick and troublesome. What could work in our favour is the fact that we do have a strong defence, which has really been the centre point of our successes in many of the games that we have won in the recent past.

It will be imperative for our defence to stand firm an hold it’s ground and not concede any goals like Pirates did, if we can hold them out early on and create a number of good scoring chances and make them count as well in the opening exchanges than we will have gone along way towards winning the game. Sir Alex has said that he wants an improved performance from his team, based on this I will say that they will give more against us.

In conclusion I will say that in all my time with Chiefs this game is probably one of the most important games for me as it should go along way towards measuring how far on a persona level myself and my technical team have progressed in the past year, in charge of this wonderful team. Leading the best supported team in the continent out against probably the most famous team in the world is the kind of thing one dreams about when your career is at it’s infancy and tomorrow, hopefully that will become a reality when we face the red devils.

To all the supporters we will put in a performance which will allow you to hold your head high and be proud to be a supporter of this great team, I would like to you all at Newlands in Cape Town as the numerical advantage in the stands will assist us to win on the field.

Yours for the Vodacom Challenge

Ernst Middendorp