MATSHELANE MAMABOLO
THOUGH fans were delighted with the victory over SuperSport United, celebrating as though it was a championship-delivering result, Kaizer Chiefs coach Cavin Johnson knows not to get carried away.
And as he reflected on Amakhosi’s 2-1 Premiership win on Saturday night, Johnson spoke with the tone of a man who understands just how far his team still has to go to get to the level required of Chiefs.
“No, I don’t think anyone should be relieved,” he said deep in the bowels of the Peter Mokaba Stadium as the news hounds quizzed him on what the victory – Chiefs’ first in six league matches – meant.
“There are still five games to go and we are Kaizer Chiefs. If it was the other way round and we had five wins and today we drew, we would be disappointed.”
He acknowledged, though, that the three points gained via goals by Christian Saile and Mduduzi Shabalala either side of a Terrence Dzvukamanja penalty provided some light in what was fast becoming a dark tunnel for Amakhosi.
“We broke the egg, as they say, and we look forward to the next five games that are left to finish as positively as we can. We turned a little bit of a corner, but we’ve got to prepare ourselves better ahead of the next game.”
That next game is against champions-elect Mamelodi Sundowns, who will arrive at the FNB Stadium on Thursday like wounded tigers following their CAF Champions League semi-final exit.
“Personality-wise and team-wise yes, it (the victory) is good to go to the next match with.”
Johnson was particularly pleased with how his team applied themselves on the night against a struggling yet always tough opponent coached by a man he admires.
“The mentality of my players, the effort of my players (that’s what pleased me). Playing against a team that normally breaks you down mentally, against a coach that is astute in how he sets his team up, physically and mentally our team was able to match those.”
Thank you Polokwane, Limpopo and all the travelling Branches and Supporters! We appreciate your support. ❤️✌️
— Kaizer Chiefs (@KaizerChiefs) April 28, 2024
We will see you again soon!#Amakhosi4Life pic.twitter.com/TvFN77cJHr
He liked that the work they put in at training finally paid off after a number of matches that yielded poor results despite his feeling they’d been the dominant team.
“We went back to the drawing board, trained a little bit more on how they must finish and today Saile scores a goal that he scores in training. Shabba scored the goal that we set up in training for technique only and he did that – no power, just technique. We are happy today we got two goals (because) in the last two games we got zero.”
Happy but not getting carried away, at least not like the crowd who lit up their phones late in the game to celebrate and then sang their hearts out at the final whistle. An uninformed observer would have thought Chiefs had just been crowned champions.
But when a team has had it as tough as Chiefs in recent matches, Saturday night’s delight was not really misplaced. Amakhosi needed the pick-me-upper, especially with Sundowns next up for them.