Tinkler’s Stress Reduced Ahead Of Pirates Test

Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler expressed relief as his side will play more matches after reaching the MTN8 semifinals, unlike other teams before the league starts.
He emphasized that reaching the semifinals was crucial, as it would have been challenging to maintain match sharpness during the extended break between now and the start of the new league campaign.
City defeated Sekhukhune United 1-0 in the quarterfinals on Saturday and will now face Orlando Pirates in a two-legged semifinal. Tinkler explained that if they had been eliminated, it would have been like going through another pre-season due to the delay in the start of the league season.
The PSL’s title sponsorship changed at the last minute, with Betway replacing DStv. As a result, the league’s schedule has been adjusted, and City will begin their 2024/25 campaign with an away match against Royal AM on 14 September.
However, the MTN8 semifinals will take place before the league starts, providing City with valuable competitive matches to maintain their form.
Tinkler highlighted the importance of playing competitive fixtures in the next coming weeks. “Massively, massively because obviously that there is that element that I have to sit and plan,” said Tinkler of reaching the semifinal.
“What if you don’t win this game and like you said, you are only playing again on 14 September, so there is a long period, it is almost another pre-season that you have to set and prepare for.
“Like I have said, those friendly games will never give you the true estimate of where you are. For us to be able to already now progress to the next round and we still have these competitive matches that we have to play in order to get ourselves into the final, I think that is very important,
“It makes my job a little bit easier because I don’t need to go and find oppositions to play against which is not going to be easy especially Stellenbosch is through, they won’t want play against us. We don’t have many PSL clubs in Cape Town, so finding friendlies is a very difficult.
“I’m very happy that we have gone through because at least we can continue with that competitiveness.”