Kaizer Chiefs head coach Molefi Ntseki has discussed whether mdifielder Edson Castillo will be ready to face AmaZulu in the Carling Knockout Cup after he travelled around half the world following his Venezuela call-up.
Amakhosi are sweating on Castillo’s availability after Castillo returned to the national team for the first time since 2022.
Despite Castillo not featuring in the 1-1 draw with Brazil and the 3-0 win over Chile, he is currently on his way back to South Africa, but it remains to be seen whether he will be ready to feature on Saturday.
“The timezones are a bit of a challenge for us, but he’s a professional,” he told journalists.
“We are looking forward to him arriving in South Africa on Thursday night. Hopefully we’ll have him in our captain’s run on Friday.
“Then we’ll get advice from our medical team and also our sport-science in terms of how many minutes we can have him on the pitch, if ever we have to start him [or] we have to bring him in.
“But he’s a very important member of the team.”
Ntseki says he was proud that Castillo was called up by Venezuela, even though it wasn’t ideal that he didn’t feature at all.
“The first thing was for us to congratulate him to be selected for the national team and I think every player wants to play for his national team,” he added.
“It was a very big achievement for him to be recognized, to be selected for the national team playing for Kaizer Chiefs in South Africa. So just for him to be in the camp, it was a good thing because he was part of the team and he went through the training and the preparation of the team, even though he did not play.
“But I think I would have been much happier, if he was to play for his national team. And I know for a fact that the type of player he is would have loved to play.
“So it is not a good thing for us for him not to have played, but it is also a good thing for us that he was in the national team.”
