Baxter is happy playing ‘organised’ Raja
KAIZER Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter has welcomed the fresh challenge that will be Raja Casablanca, whom they face in a CAF Champions League clash at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban tomorrow night (7pm).
South African antipathy towards CAF competitions is well known and Chiefs have been the quiet ringleaders in the past.
However, they have also been subjected to some weird and wonderful experiences that are unique to CAF club competitions.
In Raja Casablanca, who played in the 2013 Fifa World Club Cup final, Baxter seems to have found the model African team he would like to play against.
Baxter also happily announced that influential left-back Tsepo Masilela will be available after missing Wednesday night’s PSL game against Maritzburg United.
“You want to play these teams because they are organised. A lot of the problems we have when we play in Angola, Mali or the Congo is because things are not organised. The hotels, crowd and the traffic is not organised. Most of the time, the teams you play against are spontaneous and they are not organised,” Baxter said.
“You want to play against teams you can draw up a game plan against, so for us it is quite refreshing to play against an organised team that is well coached.
“It is better than going to a team that you know nothing about and go into chaos.”
It seems Chiefs have got over Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat by Maritzburg United, where they were flat and listless.
“The best way to eat an elephant is to do so one piece at a time. You can’t be thinking about Nedbank Cup matches while you have a CAF game to deal with. It’s about the next step, which is Raja. Once you try to focus on all the competitions without zeroing in on a specific one, things will get hazy,” captain Tefu Mashamaite said.
“The real battle is going to be on the field, not about what happens in press conferences.”