Cape Town City head coach Jan Olde Riekerink. File Picture: Ryan Wilkisky, BackpagePix
CAPE TOWN – Without anyone almost noticing it but Kaizer Chiefs have quickly become a bogey team for Cape Town City.
Amakhosi hold an advantage in terms of head-to-clashes between the two rivals, with City not having managed to beat Chiefs in their last eight encounters across all competitions since 2017.
While Chiefs' stature in South African football is deserving of this status, the situation was not always like this, particularly at the inception of The Citizens when City held the upper hand in the first three encounters. This, of course, culminated with a thrilling 3-2 goal extravaganza at Cape Town Stadium when former City striker Judas Moseamedi headed home the winner deep into injury time.
But since then it's been all Chiefs and City coach Jan Olde Riekerink knows his team need to raise their intensity at FNB Stadium on Wednesday.
"We know that Kaizer Chiefs is a big team with a big history and they have a good squad. We are aware of their qualities. I also think that they have also only lost once in the last nine games. They are in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. And they also have ambitions to be in the top eight," Olde Riekerink said.
"It is also an important phase for them in the competition, so it will be two teams with ambition, so hopefully we will go out and get the result in the way we played against SuperSport."
City certainly have nothing to fear at the 2010 World Cup final venue. They are two places above and five points ahead of Chiefs on the Dstv Premiership log and come off a brilliant 3-0 victory over SuperSport United.
It snapped an eight-game winless streak and Olde Riekerink now believes that his team have the confidence to take on the Mighty Amakhosi in their own backyard.
"I think it was very important that we had the result in the last game against SuperSport. We played very good football and finally it resulted in goals and we didn't concede any," the Dutchman said.
"For the morale side of things it was very important that game. We know we end the season in a very good way, so let's focus on that. If you see the fixtures, besides Sundowns in our last game, we are all facing teams that are below us. If we have the ambition we can show it in these games."