Soccer Laduma

Wang’kolota… Romeo the Chiefs tormentor

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Last Saturday, Kermit Erasmus netted his first goal in his second stint for Pirates against former club. His sharp box movement saw him find space and head home Saleng’s fine cross from the right. He thought he had scored recently against Usuthu, but the official referee report correctly ruled that strike as a Veli Mothwa own goal as Romeo’s effort was going off target. For a player who hadn’t featured since April 2022, a gap of five months without game-time, his physical condition and general form for Bucs has been impressive. You would expect him to start the Soweto Derby, especially as Pirates have had a full week to recover and prepare for the match after the MTN8 semifinals. In general, the stocky forward has enjoyed playing against Kaizer Chiefs in his career. Although he has “just” six goals from 23 career outings against Amakhosi, he has often performed very well in those matches. Erasmus has scored in the shirts of SuperSport, Pirates, Cape Town City and Sundowns against South Africa’s most-supported club

and will be hungry to do so again this

Citizens, he netted twice against the Glamour Boys. He firstly cut inside Erick Mathoho to score in August 2019 and then rifled home a longrange rocket in the Telkom Knockout. He then scored on his full debut for Downs in a 3-0 thrashing of Chiefs in October 2020. The Gqeberha-born man is great at bringing teammates into play, which was highlighte­d by Saleng’s comments after the winger’s brace against Arrows, where he said, “In this game, they (the coaching staff) gave me a message to play just nearby Kermit Erasmus because he likes holding balls. So, when I am wide, I would come near him whenever he had the ball on his feet. Even the goals that I scored come from him because I was always near him. I would start wide, but immediatel­y when he had the ball, I would quickly make sure that I was near him. That allowed me to always be in the right position to score.”

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