Durban - Chippa United will travel to Durban this weekend as they prepare to take on Soweto giants Kaizer Chiefs at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday at 5.30pm.
The Chilli Boys seemed to have turned around their fortunes under caretaker coach Morgan Mammila who took over following the sacking of Daine Klate. However, after securing two victories on the trot for the first time this season, Chippa were halted by the international break and an MTN8 Cup week and have now gone almost a month without action.
Club captain Roscoe Pietersen believes not playing top level football in the past month might be a factor as they prepare to take on Amakhosi, considering they had started picking up momentum.
“Our preparations are going really well but the break didn’t come at the right time for us because we had beaten Marumo Gallants and we were coming off back to back wins, something the club had not achieved for quite some time and we had started to develop confidence within the squad and having to go four weeks without competitive football was quite challenging for us,” Pietersen explained.
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The Glamour Boys are in impressive form. They are on a seven-game unbeaten run and have scored 10 goals, with Burundian striker Caleb Bimenyimana announcing his arrival emphatically.
Pietersen, although wary of the threat Chiefs pose, was quick to squash any assumption that he and his teammates will head into this encounter looking to simply not get beaten, and revealed that they’re confident of having enough quality to take down the Glamour Boys.
“The plan for us is to always compete and play to win. We are also in an uprising at the moment, we just weren’t playing but we’re coming off back to back wins, which is very positive for us. I think it’s a good time to play them (Chiefs),” expressed Pietersen.
The Chilli Boys will be looking to improve on a horrible record against Amakhosi. Chippa have managed just a single victory against them in their last six encounters. Pietersen says that they have identified Chiefs’ key men and will look to pay special attention to them.
“Yes there are one or two players that we will try and point and keep quiet but as a whole they have quite a balanced squad with experience as well so it’s important that we pay attention to the whole team if we want to get a positive result.”
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