AmaZulu FC v Orlando Pirates

3 November, Moses Mabhida Stadium, 18h00

Milutin Sredojevic will hope that his charges will not be suffering from the Soweto Derby hangover after getting the better of Kaizer Chiefs last weekend because one thing is for sure, AmaZulu are going to provide a challenge. The two sides played a draw in the league at the beginning of October and, this time around, one has to succumb to the Knockout punch! Who will be smiling all the way to the semifinals? The home side has Emiliano Tade as the danger man, while Vincent will no doubt be asking a lot of questions of the Usuthu defence.

We bring our A-game to Pirates Cavin Johnson – AmaZulu FC head coach

“Ja, we find ourselves in a difficult situation at the moment. As you have seen, Orlando Pirates have done very well and they won the derby against Kaizer Chiefs, so their spirits are high this week and we come from a loss in Cape Town. It is a matter of us going back to the drawing board this week and waking the boys up again because when we played against City in the first round of the Telkom Knockout, we played very good football and we won that one, which was good for us. But we face a different scenario this time around. We have to turn our focus to a much stronger team. We have to look at our players and get them mentally and physically ready for this battle. We need to reinvent the hunger again and I think that a game of this magnitude will do that for us. But we are very aware of Pir-

ates – they are very strong naturally and we know that they are going to come to Durban in search of a victory. We are going to have to bring our A-game to the field and hopefully be able to do what we did the last time they came to us. The best thing that the two sides did in the last game was to give the supporters a good brand of football. We played an open game and there was nobody sitting back, and I want to see the same happening this time around. We will come with our tactics and they must come with theirs. We will see on the day whose tactics will be better than the other’s. For sure we are expecting a nice big crowd at our home stadium and, who knows, maybe that will give us an extra boost to get an edge over the Buccaneers. We know for sure that we will go out there, do our best on the day and come to the party to make sure that, at the end of the day, we have a result that we are proud of.”

Bus need to stretch them Patson ‘Sparks’ Banda – Orlando Pirates legend

“I watched the previous game of AmaZulu’s when they eliminated Cape Town City. The performances that they have been showing this season have been incredible and good to watch. If they carry on with the same performance against Orlando Pirates, then I must say that Bucs are going to have their work cut out for them. I would assume that it will be a helluva game, a hard one for Pirates to get through to the next round. Moreover, it is an away game for the Buccaneers and AmaZulu are no walkovers when they play in front of their home crowd. We will be eager to see an exciting game and I know that coach Micho (Milutin Sredojevic) will be going all out to make sure that his team progresses to the next round. To be honest with you, I think this is going to be anyone’s game. Both teams are on form. At times, we look at each of the teams’ squads and we analyse that. For me, if I had to carefully take into consideration what Pirates have been able to do recently, I think they are finding their feet once again. There have been some outstanding individual performances from the likes of Vincent Pule and Ben Motshwari; Xola Mlambo has been in the thick of things and I cannot rule out all the others because, as a collective they are doing the job. Obviously the AmaZulu technical team will be looking at that and they will be looking for ways to close Pirates down. But Pirates need to stretch their opponents’ defence. They need to have wing play in order to stretch them out and I believe they can do that.”