Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune has praised Happy Jele’s leadership in the ongoing DStv Compact Cup.
The two long-serving captains in their respective clubs, are now teammates at the Warriors team in the newly created tournament, with Jele being the skipper.
Jele led the Warriors into today’s final after his side beat Amabutho 2-1 in the second semi-final at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday evening last week.
“Myself and Happy Jele, I think we’ve come a long way. We’ve been friends even off the field,” Khune said ahead of the match.
“We’ve been doing campaigns together for our clubs as captains, and we usually have our normal talks on how it feels to captain such a big institution.
“We share a lot of experiences on how he can improve as a captain towards his teammates, how I can improve even now as soon as we got to camp on our first day, it was such a headache for the coach and the staff and other players to choose who’s going to be the captain for the team.
“To be quite honest, I raised my hand and said, let’s give it to Happy Jele, and he raised his hand and said, let’s give it to Itumeleng Khune, so we are working together in that way to make sure that we bring unity and teamwork.”
The seasoned goalkeeper, who has more than 90 caps in the national team, was also surprised by the Jele’s omission in the Bafana Bafana sqaud over the years—the skipper has just featured three times in friendly games.
“Yes, it was great to play with him finally, in the same team, we’ve been rivals for many years,” he said.
“And he was unfortunate not to get picked to represent the country as much as he would have loved to because we could have played many matches in the Bafana team.
“But like I said, it’s not in our hands, but coaches make those calls. And we respected that. But it’s a great reunion for us to be leading the team from the back.”
Warriors meet Coastal United in the final on Saturday at FNB Stadium at 15:00.
