HERMAN GIBBS
RELEGATED Cape Town Spurs rubbed Kaizer Chiefs’ noses into the lush Cape Town Stadium turf yesterday when AmaKhosi suffered the worst day in their history.
Spurs ran out 2-0 winners in the final round of the league season to condemn Chiefs to their worst finish in Premiership history. Once all of yesterday’s matches were decided, Chiefs were in 10th place, never having finished lower than ninth.
Referee Tshidiso Maruping had a nightmare outing and Spurs manager Ernst Middendorp described his performance as “a joke”. He denied Spurs at least two penalties in the match.
True to their word, Spurs showed they were indeed playing for pride and started with a sense of urgency that exerted pressure on Chiefs from the opening whistle.
Chiefs were fielding an untried combination after injuries sidelined key players such as George Matlou, Keagan Dolly, Reeve Frosler, Dillan Solomons and Tebogo Potsane. The loss of form of others such as Yusuf Maart and Sabelo Radebe compounded Chiefs’ problems.
Despite their hopeless position because they were already relegated two weeks ago, Spurs produced a fluent display with a few pacy moves down the left flank. Forwards Ashley Cupido and Asenele Velebayi were particularly penetrative in this channel as Chiefs’ defence battled with their pace.
Spurs seemed far more relaxed on the ball, but on occasions they also lost the ball inside their half. This presented Chiefs with attacking opportunities, but they failed to exploit them.
As the first half wore on, Chiefs had a few half-chances to score, but these were spurned. In the process, Spurs picked up their momentum as the match approached half-time.
Midway through the half, Chiefs goalkeeper Bruce Bvuma suffered an injury that caused the match to stop for a few minutes while the club’s medical staff attended to him. During this time, AmaKhosi fans launched into a sustained call for veteran keeper Itumeleng Khune to join the fray as a substitute.
Bvuma managed to continue but could not stop Spurs from taking the lead before the break. However, he prevented Spurs from taking a 2-0 lead when he denied Velebayi with an acrobatic save.
Cupido opened the scoring in the 37th minute to give Spurs a deserved lead. Once he latched onto a feed from Velebayi, he shook off the attention of three Chiefs defenders to unleash a daisy-cutter from the fringe of the penalty area, and it sizzled past Bvuma.
Chiefs made a desperate bid to turn their fortunes around at the start of the second half by bringing on substitutes Mfundo Vilakazi, Yusuf Maart and Wandile Duba.
But the changes did not have the desired effect and half an hour into the half Spurs midfielder Michael Morton drove the final nail into Chiefs’ coffin.
Trailing 2-0 marked the beginning of the end for Chiefs, who never seemed like scoring in the rest of the match, although they came close to conceding at least two late goals.