Johnson – ‘It would mean the world’ to win Kaizer Chiefs a trophy

Cavin Johnson has admitted he would love to be the coach that breaks Kaizer Chiefs’ trophy drought by winning this season’s Nedbank Cup.

If Amakhosi fail to lift a piece of silverware this season, it will be a full nine years since Chiefs last won an official PSL trophy.

With Chiefs nowhere near Mamelodi Sundowns in the race for the DStv Premiership, the Nedbank Cup represents their last realistic chance of giving their millions of supporters some joy in the 2023/24

“Personally it would mean the world to me (winning the Nedbank Cup),” said Amakhosi interim head coach Johnson, whose side will be at home to Motsepe Championship side Milford FC in the last 32 on Sunday.

“I think to Chiefs and our massive following it would be huge. I think any club in the PSL puts a lot of emphasis on any trophy and I don’t think we are different to any club.

“If I was here from the beginning (of the season) I would have said that of the four trophies on offer, I want to win all four.

“Let’s hope Sundowns lose five games in the league and we have a chance (in the title race). In saying that, realistically, this (the Nedbank Cup) is the only one on offer. We are putting our emphasis on this competition, and playing the best we can for this trophy for as long as we can.”

‘One big player’

Johnson admits that Milford FC, who are currently 12^th in the Championship in their first season in South Africa’s second tier, are a bit of an unknown quantity to Amakhosi, though they have done their best to get footage of the Richards Bay side.

“Milford are a secret to us, and we tried to do our homework and came up with a few things. They bought over Uthongathi (Milford acquired the NFD status of Uthongathi ahead of the new season).

“We did look at them and there is one little player, actually one big player, (Siyabonga) Nzama, who makes them tick.

“We always play NFD teams in pre-season and when we get time off for Fifa breaks, and whenever we play these teams they give us a hard time. So we will have to up our game 200 percent.”