Battles to look out for
Shalulile v Kwinika
With an incredible 30 goals in all competitions last season, 23 of them in the DStv Premiership, most of Chiefs’ attention is going to be on trying to stop the Namibian striker. He has scored five goals in nine matches against Amakhosi in his career. In the 2020/21, he scored in the first league match against the Soweto giants but missed the return fixture as the Chloorkop-based side lost their only league game of that season. Last term, Shalulile scored in the first fixture again but not in the late-season 1-1 draw.
Zwane is not expected to change his centre-back pairing for this match. Ngcobo is still earning back the coach’s confidence after his errors and angry reaction to being substituted against Arrows. Austin Dube hasn’t been selected for a single start in eight matches since the new coach arrived and Erick Mathoho hasn’t been seen
in a long time. Kwinika is going to be key to dealing with Shalulile and the former Stellenbosch FC defender stopped the prolific striker from scoring in both matches he played against him last season at his former club. Prior to that, Shalulile had scored
four goals in his previous three matches against Kwinika, so this promises to be a great battle.
Maart v Domingo
The big investment made on Maart means that Chiefs are expected to build their midfield around him.
He had an interesting role against Royal AM as Zwane used rotational positioning from his trio. At times, Maart was seen deep to orchestrate play, whilst he also got forward in many possession sequences and it was his fine pass which created Du Preez’s big chance. Zwane sometimes had Sithebe deepest and then running beyond his forwards in other moments. Even Alexander made forward runs on some occasions, but he was largely more restrained.
It therefore means that Maart will be able to move where he sees fit to get on the ball. Similar applies to Downs’ Domingo. He excelled last season when used alongside Jali in a double pivot, but in the opening fixture in his native Cape Town, he was used on the left of a midfield diamond. This saw him with freedom to get between-thelines and even make runs into goalscoring positions, as seen by his lobbed chance in the first half. Maart was most often seen on the right of Chiefs’ midfield three and that puts him in direct competition with Domingo. The latter has more energy and skill on the ball but
doesn’t tend to hit long passes and switches with both feet like Maart, although the pass for Mshishi’s goal on Friday was an inch-perfect long one. They will be looking to close each other down and that’s where
Domingo’s pressing intensity may come to the fore.
Billiat v Mudau
Without doubt, Du Preez will be a huge threat to Downs. Billiat should get more space because of this, whether it’s in a central position or coming off the left. After netting eight league goals last term, he will be expected to at least match that total for Chiefs or even hit double figures this time around. Mudau was outstanding last season and again against City, keeping Darwin Gonzalez quiet with a fine defensive outing. The fullback hobbled off after 70 minutes with what looked like cramp and the Brazilians will be hopeful he can start against Amakhosi.
Du Preez and Billiat are both excellent on the counter-attack and favour the left channel, so Mudau may need to pick his moments to go forward carefully. Any time he vacates his area could lead to space to be exposed on transition. If Billiat can cause problems in one-vs-one actions, it could go a long way to helping the Soweto giants take one or more points from this match. However, few PSL defenders are as good facing dribblers as the Bafana Bafana
right back.