Billiat’s gong was one for the team, he says
Tshepo Ntsoelengoe
Khama Billiat’s impressive performances in September earned him the Absa Premiership Player-of-the-Month award, but the Kaizer Chiefs striker says it was all about the whole team, and says there is room for improvement.
The former Mamelodi Sundowns star (pictured) spearheaded the Chiefs attack in September, scoring two goals and grabbing two assists. The Glamour Boys went on to record three straight wins, beating Cape Town City 4-1, Free State Stars 2-0 and AmaZulu FC by the same scoreline.
“I would like to thank all the players and the technical team. It is not about me, I think we all had a great run as a team up until now. We are looking at improving and we have a goal we want to achieve,” said the Chiefs star, while sitting alongside his coach Giovanni Solinas, who bagged the Coach-of-the-Month accolade at the PSL headquarters in Parktown yesterday.
The Zimbabwean said it was every player’s wish to win awards, particularly the end-of-season awards, but says that can only be done if the club is doing well and Chiefs are still in a process, taking it one game at a time.
“Every player always wants to do better and receive awards, but most importantly, you can win awards only if the club is doing well. So we have to go back to the drawing board and make sure we all work together towards achieving our goals. And as long as the team does well, we will get to see individual players playing at their best,” he continued.
“It’s a process, it’s not a nice one but we have to go through it and right now we are just putting our focus on one game at a time. It would be nice if a Kaizer Chiefs player gets an award at the end of the season.”
Benni McCarthy is regarded as South Africa’s most successful footballing export, banging in the goals for the likes of Blackburn Rovers and FC Porto, where he won the Uefa Champions League and, of course, becoming his country’s leading goalscorer, a title he still holds long after hanging up his boots. So there was always going to be a little more attention than usual on McCarthy, when he took up his first ever post as a head coach, taking over at Cape Town City in 2017. McCarthy has done a fine job so far, it must be said, reaching the MTN8 final last season and this time winning it.
Assistant referee Edward Madidilane committed a howler in disallowing Mamelodi Sundowns’ late “goal” against Bloemfontein Celtic on Wednesday. Madidilane raised his flag for off-side after Patrick Tignyemb had turned Ali Meza’s cross into Lebo Maboe’s path, with the Sundowns man converting. Maboe was not off-side, and while Themba Zwane was, there is absolutely no way it could be deemed interfering with play. That idea of what interfering with play means is open to interpretation, but it usually means a player must attempt to make contact with the ball, which Zwane did not. It is sometimes hard to sympathise with Pitso Mosimane’s (pictured) complaints, but on this occasion he was bang on the money.