Kaizer Chiefs' Cedric Kaze remains optimistic despite missed opportunities

CEDRIC KAZE, the joint stand-in coach at Kaizer Chiefs, is the glass if half-full kind of guy. As Amakhosi struggle to put together consistently positive results, the Congolese who shares the coaching duties with Youssef Ben Khalil chooses to look on the bright side.

Even after Chiefs fluffed a glorious opportunity to move into third place on the Betway Premiership by failing to beat an AmaZulu outfit that was there for the taking, Kaze was chose to highlight the good out of that 1-1 draw.

“A few weeks ago, we were getting into the final third but the last pass; the last movement was not good. In the last two games, the passes are there and the movements are there. Now it is just the unlucky situation of players not scoring and the (opposition) keepers making the saves. If we keep the momentum and keep our focus, I am pretty sure the goals are gonna come very soon.”

The goals should have come on Wednesday night though, but Amakhosi fluffed two of them to drop important points they are likely to rue come the end of the season.

Glody Lilepo missed a first half penalty kick and Khanyiso Mayo‘s greediness saw him deny teammate Pule Mmodi a certain goal that would have seen him get the Chiefs’ fans off his case. Mayo decided to kick the goal-bound ball over the line, but he had come from an offside position and the goal thus did not count. Mmodi was understandably crestfallen.

Kaze’s take on it was that of a coach who will always defend his players at all times. The man who previously doubled up as translator for the frozen out Coach Nasreddine Nabi actually voiced that stance during the pre Carling KnockOut Cup first round media conference in Johannesburg midweek.

“Those things happen,” Kaze said of the Mayo incident. “Everyone was not happy, starting with the player himself, Mayo. It was an unfortunate situation that cost us two points because we should have won. Yet, on the other hand, it is something we will address in general because it is not like he did it on purpose to deny his teammate an opportunity to score a goal.”

Kaze also said Chiefs are not perturbed at their having failed to convert in-game penalty kicks in their last two matches. Lilepo had his direct kick from the six yard mark saved by AmaZulu’s Darren Johnson, a match after Gaston Sirino was foiled against Kabuscorp in the CAF Confederation Cup preliminary.

Again the Chiefs stand-in-coach gave a positive spin to the situation saying the two players are the club’s top penalty takers and just had bad fortune on match day.

“In the last two games we were unfortunate not to score our penalties, especially with the two best penalty takers in our team, Lilepo and Sirino. It’s something that people might think is a lack of preparation but we do (practice) penalties everyday and we don’t even wait until there’s a game that requires penalty kicks.

"We do them every day to prepare ourselves for when the moment comes. Unfortunately, for the last two games we missed and this is something we have to keep working on to raise the confidence within the team. If those situations happen again, we hope that we will deal with them better in the future.”

That future could well be on Sunday when Chiefs take on Stellenbosch FC in the Carling Knockout first round at the Cape Town Stadium.

The midweek failings notwithstanding, Chiefs are likely to start as favourites given their generally good record against a Stellies side that is having a wretched time in the league campaign.

Strangely, Kaze’s outlook was not as positive on this one as he chose to underplay their chances.

“It’s unfortunate that the history of the last fixtures that Kaizer Chiefs won against Stellenbosch (FC) is not gonna be of any help in this game,” he said.

What would be of help is for them to convert their chances – score penalty kicks should they get them and avoid messing up opportunities like Mayo did against AmaZulu on Wednesday.