Malesela delighted with Nedbank Cup progression

Chippa United coach Dan Malesela was delighted with his side’s Nedbank Cup progression at hands of Cape Town City on Sunday and is looking forward to a meeting with Richards Bay in the quarterfinals.

Chippa claimed a 2-1 extra-time victory at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, a game which took plenty out of both sides ahead of a DStv Premiership meeting between the two in East London on Wednesday.

“A very difficult game, one that we expected to go the way it was,” Malesela says. “We did not really expect the players of Cape Town City to tire that much, that was the only difference.

“But we knew it would be a game whereby if we made mistakes, we would be punished, and likewise for them. It was a game between two teams who want to play football and we are grateful that we won.

“We were worried about penalties, and us getting to extra-time because there was a span where we were seriously under pressure. We just sat back and were not picking up [City players]. I was worried about extra-time because I did not want us to go into Wednesday’s game tired.”

Malesela, who lifted the Nedbank Cup with then second-tier side TS Galaxy in 2019, says they will not fear quarterfinal opponents Richards Bay, who have already knocked Kaizer Chiefs out of the competition this season.

“I do not take draws into consideration that much, who we will play and what will happen in the next game. What we should focus on is to say, where will our level be by the time we play that match. We need to have improved quite a lot from where we are.

“When you play other teams you may feel threatened or be scared to play and bring unnecessary fear into the minds of the players. We have over-rated a lot of teams before and when we played them we thought, ‘ah, what happened to the team [we thought they were]’.