Plenty to play for

IN THE lead-up to Saturday’s clash against Kaizer Chiefs, the Cape Town City brains trust had said that defeat in Soweto would signal the end to their challenge for the Premier Soccer League title.

City put in a disappointing performance in defeat and dropped to joint fifth on the table. The gap between City and log-leaders Mamelodi Sundowns is indeed daunting, and with only nine games remaining for the Citizens, it would take a calamity of surprising proportions for the Pretoria side to come unstuck.

City are clearly not counting on that possibility, although the league has been very compact this season with a couple of positive results often catapulting sides a few spots up the ladder.

But there is still plenty at stake for City. Starting tomorrow, they play four games in 10 days – three of them at home. The first is against Swazi side Young Buffaloes in the Caf Confederation Cup. Benni McCarthy’s side already have an away win in the bag from the first-leg match, but they will need to lace up their shooting boots to make sure of progressing to the last 32 in this competition.

McCarthy, whose goal-poaching instincts as a player are widely known, will be hoping he can urgently impart his penchant for finding the net with his feet or head to his team’s marksmen.

The coach has in the past not hesitated to drop players he’s deemed to be under-performing and he has the depth in his squad to be able to do so. By next Friday, City will also have three more league games under their belts, the first at home to a team they’ve had great success against in this campaign, outgoing league champions Wits.

Afterwards there is potentially more to come in the Confed Cup and last-16 action in the Nedbank Cup against Orlando Pirates (with three other Cape sides in the running in the form of Stellenbosch FC, Ubuntu Cape Town and Steenberg United).

Cape Town City may regard the league door as having shut, but they have plenty more to play for.