ORLANDO Pirates, who will come to the home game on the back foot due to the result of the match at the end of February, will face the different Kaizer Chiefs on Sunday at 3 pm in the Betway Premiership at FNB Stadium, Nasrec.
Pirates, who are in contention for the title with Mamelodi Sundowns, are the ones tipped to win this Sunday’s game since they recently defeated Chiefs 3-0 in the latter’s home match.
However, it is difficult to ignore that a lot has changed in Makhosi since the Pirates’ goal with goals from Tsepang Moremi, Oswin Appollis and Evidence Makgopa.
When the Pirates played against the Chiefs in February, things were not quite right for the Naturena team, which came to the game incomplete following the hospitalization of its goalkeeper Brandon Petersen, who is also the captain.
Although they lost to Polokwane City, who they tied 0-0 in the middle of Sunday, but Chiefs will face Pirates with high confidence since they won five league games in a row.
This not only restores hope for the place where the Chiefs can finish in the log this season but also the confidence of the players will be different in this Sunday’s game.
The form of Pirates is amazing these days as they put in the last push to beat Sundowns but the turn of fortune of Chiefs is not self-evident.
The change in thinking is visible on the faces of the Chiefs players:
The Chiefs came to the home team last time with a low level of confidence due to the denial of the results, but this time their players are showing signs of hunger to be part of the team because they are doing well.
It is clear what the Chiefs are trying to do on the field if you compare it to before the last home game when almost everything they said they were doing went wrong.
It is possible that those who train the team together, Cedric Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef, have changed something in the way they prepare for games, and the players have also changed their behavior in the field.
The goals have been scored by the opponents and not only by the Chiefs:
There was a long time this season when the Chiefs failed to score two or more goals in a game, but recently it seems that the tap has been opened. The Chiefs will come to the Pirates having been able to score goals in many different ways of playing.
Apart from Flavio Silva from Guinea-Bissau, goals have also started to appear from players including Glody Lilepo from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mduzuzi Shabalala. Silva leads the league with seven goals and Shabalala from Mzansi is in second place with four.
Captain goalkeeper recovery:
The weakness of the Chiefs in the sticks, especially in Bruce Bvuma, was always in the open as Petersen was recovering from surgery due to illness.
Since he (Petersen) is back, the Chiefs’ back wall is showing signs of awakening.
Petersen’s absence was evident to the previous home team until some of the Chiefs fans came out with Bvuma ibhubu and criticized him for doing it on the ground.
The breadth of the squad as Chiefs:
The Chiefs go to the home game with Cedric Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef free on the bench because there are not a few players who raise their hand when something goes wrong, but even those who came from the bench came to the field clearly.
The Chiefs will come to the Pirates already able to look around the bench where there are players including Asavela Velebayi who usually comes in with good moves, and Siphesihle Ndlovu who is showing signs of returning to the form he is known for even coming from the bench. It is difficult to ignore the contributions of players like Ethan Chislett, who said that he can recover from injury and it was clear how much he will be useful to the Chiefs, and other players including Siphesihle Ndlovu.
This is a good opportunity for Kaze and Ben Youssef to get into the hearts of Chiefs fans who still feel the pain of how they taxed Pirates in the previous home game.