Posted in News on Jul 19, 2007.
Jol was followed by the rest of his team who waited for the coach to complete his media commitments, upon completion of which they boarded a flight from Johannesburg and headed to Durban where they have commenced their preparations for Saturday’s Vodacom Challenge encounter against Chiefs.
Chiefs who lost to Spurs four years ago when the teams met in 2010 bid match played at the Newlands Rugby Stadium in Cape Town, will be looking to use Saturday’s game to get one back at their more fancied opponents. For Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertugral the game affords him with the opportunity to further test the readiness of his team with three weeks to go before the kick off of the 2007 – 2008 season on the 15th August.
Successful tour
Spurs coach Martin Jol did not look like a man who had just come off a 10 hour flight as he smiled and toyed around with the media during his arrival press conference the highly experienced Dutch coach was happy with the welcome his team received upon their arrival in Johannesburg. Jol said “I have not been to South Africa before but Robbie Keane was here when Spurs toured in 2003, he told me a lot about the place and he did mention that they received a warm welcome on their previous tour. The same rang true for us today as we did not expect to be greeted by so many people when we touched down, it was really heart warming”.
When the North Londoners visited South Africa in 2003 they managed to win one of their two games on tour losing the first before bouncing back to win the second, Jol though preferred to make reference to a Tottenham Hotspurs visit a bit further back then 2003. Jol added “in 1961 one of the best Tottenham Hotspurs teams of all time toured South Africa and they managed to score 13 goals in 3 games let us hope that we can do the same. If we cannot get the same number of goals I will be pleased with three wins in South Africa, I feel that we can leave here having won all our games on tour”.
South African clubs are not a closed book to Jol and his players and he made reference to this fact saying, “we played Sundowns in Korea a few years ago and I was really impressed by them. They gave us a really tough game and even though we won the peace cup I would say the game against Sundowns was one of our toughest in the tournament, from the information that I do have I believe that Chiefs and Pirates will provide us with a tough assignment as we had in Korea” concluded Jol.
Honour for Chiefs
Amakhosi coach Muhsin Ertugral who in his second stint as a coach of Chiefs has been able to draw on his past experiences of the Vodacom Challenge, as he has won the challenge twice before he will be aiming to complete a personal hat trick of Vodacom Challenge victory. The Chiefs coach though is looking at Saturday’s game to continue his team’s preparation for the upcoming season; he is honoured to face opposition of the standard of Spurs. “For us it is a real honour to be playing against a team of the calibre of Tottenham Hotspur, they have a really experienced coach and some outstanding players it is good especially for the younger guys to get a run out against teams like Spur”.
The Chiefs coach further added that he was looking ahead to Saturday’s, game to once again give a number of his younger players the opportunity to build their confidence and gain valuable experience by taking on a team with Spurs credentials. As Ertugral added “my squad is complete I have all the players I need, I feel that we have a good balance of youth and experienced players in our squad. This will help us against Spurs we will try and give a number of the younger players and opportunity to play on Saturday, playing in
These type of games can only help their development process”.
Stadium filling fast
The Vodacom Challenge organizers confirmed on Thursday that tickets for Saturday’s eagerly awaited clash between Chiefs and Spurs have been selling fast and that all the lower priced R35 tickets have been sold out. With just a number of tickets in the higher priced R60 and R100 the organizers are confident that the match will be played in front of a capacity crowd at the ABSA Stadium in Durban on Saturday afternoon. Kick off for the game has been scheduled at 15h15 and fans who have not yet purchased tickets are urged to go to their nearest Computicket outlet, or any Shoprite Checkers as well as Checkers Hyper Store to purchase tickets for the Vodacom Challenge opener.
