Lebese goal puts Chiefs into MTN8 final
THE weather was good, the crowd big and excitable and the football pretty as Kaizer Chiefs edged Bloemfontein Celtic in an enjoyably watchable MTN8 semifinal second leg last night.
Amakhosi had fought back from a goal down in the first leg in Bloemfontein, giving them the comfort of an away goal at their FNB Stadium stronghold.
George Lebese added to the advantage in the 42nd minute.
Spurred on by 36 000 of mostly their own supporters, the winners of two league and cup doubles in three years showed their pedigree in cup competitions.
Celtic coach Clinton Larsen CLINICAL FINISHER: Kaizer Chiefs winger George Lebese in action against Bloemfontein Celtic last night was concerned enough about Chiefs’ calm temperament and confidence in knockout matches to have rested almost all his frontline players, who then went on to beat Orlando Pirates 1-0 in their league match at Free State Stadium on Wednesday.
The hope was that the freshness gained would make a difference against an Amakhosi slowly finding their rhythm under coach Steve Komphela. But Chiefs looked a professional outfit in breaking down a quite defensively laid-out Celtic with intelligent, probing football.
Komphela made no changes from his side’s 1-1 away league draw against Polokwane City on Tuesday.
The question mark was whether, with his secondstringers having overwhelmed Pirates, Larsen would be tempted to retain some of those players. He did not, and stuck to his game plan of using rested players, making 10 changes.
Just centre-back Tshepo Rikhotso was retained, with even striker Geofrey Massa on the bench, as Larsen brought back heavy artillery including Musa Bilankulu, Musa Nyatama and Lerato Lamola.
Celtic had the early chances, the best of which Keagan Buchanan should have scored from in the 19th minute.
Phunya Sele Sele’s approach appeared to be to defend deep, have numbers back, and hit Chiefs on the counterattack. But sitting back against a team of Chiefs’ quality can invite trouble. And they profited from the first real chance they created, the on-form winger Lebese the clinical finisher again.
Chiefs had a shocking miss of their own in the 57th. From Bernard Parker’s free kick from the right, four players beat offside, with Willard Katsande’s shiny noggin the first to meet the ball. Somehow the midfield hard man headed wide.
Now Chiefs were turning it on. Siphiwe Tshabalala’s backheel put Siphelele Mthembu down the right. He found Siboniso Gaxa inside him, the right back fashioning a shot at goalkeeper Patrick Tignyemb.
Substitute George Maluleka forced a save from a narrow angle from Tignyemb, Tsepo Masilela’s header from the rebound making the Celtic goalkeeper get down to his right for a second stop.