The hosts played some scintillating football at times on the night, showing glimpses of the form they displayed during preseason games but two defensive errors resulted in Thanda Royal Zulu registering a 2-1 win.

Kaizer Chiefs coach, Muhsin Ertugral speaking to kaizerchiefs.com from Turkey said he was disappointed they lost their opening league game at home but, ‘there is a long way to go’.

“It was obviously disappointing to lose our first game at home. We had obviously made targets to win our home games, if you can’t win home games where are you going to win? You have to win home games. Looking back we had a good preseason, playing top class football and scoring goals.

On Saturday we still played well but could not convert our chances. We had about three clear chances that we should have converted but we did not.

The two goals Thanda scored were as a result of defensive mistakes at the back. We did come back and equalised early in the second half but they got a penalty which was unnecessary. It was just one of those days where things did not go our way; we lost Arthur early in the game. We had Onismor Bhasera out injured and Jose Torrealba suspended”

Owing to Fifa international date Amakhosi will return to action on the 14 September away in Durban to face the newly promoted Maritzburg United.

Ertugral concluded” Against Thanda Royal Zulu, we lost a battle not a war. There is still a long way to go. We will have to regroup”