Chiefs aim to win derby in honour of Kaizer – Johnson

Kaizer Chiefs interim coach Cavin Johnson has accepted the favourites tag in Saturday’s Soweto derby against Orlando Pirates at FNB Stadium, aiming to preserve their hundred percent record in the past five league meetings with Bucs.

“That we are playing at FNB Stadium, we should have the tag of being the favourites. It’s Chiefs’ home game and there’s no better place to play it than the calabash [the FNB Stadium]. Automatically we are favourites. It’d be a different thing if we were playing Pirates at Orlando Stadium,” Johnson said on Thursday.

‘It’s about us going out there and maintaining the stats, which are five games on the trot. It’s also about going out there and playing in front of 60,000 or 80,000 people, and hopefully 60,000 are Chiefs supporters.”

Acknowledging that the club and its fans haven’t always seen eye to eye, the Amakhosi interim coach urged the Amakhosi faithful to rally behind them tomorrow. 

“Yes, we’ve had some disagreements [with their fans] in the past where we’ve had to play behind closed doors, but we want them to come out on Saturday and push us positively,” Johnson said.

Johnson is also hell-bent on winning tomorrow’s clash against their traditional foes, Pirates, to honour the club’s founder and chairman Kaizer Motaung after he was inducted into the South African Hall of Fame yesterday. According to Johnson, the Amakhosi chairman is in the same mould as state presidents, crediting him for building the club’s village in Naturena.

“We also look to honour a man that I think should walk with presidents. When you talk about Kaizer, we talk about a man in the PSL, with all respect to others, who has facilities like the Village, which he’s built all from scratch. So, you’ve got to give him a lot of credit for the people in this country who are following the team that he’s built from nowhere,” Johnson said.