Chansa sends Pirates to final
A wonder strike by Isaac Chansa saw him score the 2010 Telkom Charity Cup’s opening goal in Orlando Pirates' 1-0 win over AmaZulu in the first semifinal at Soccer City on Saturday morning.
It was definitely not the most exciting of first halves but that was to be expected as both sides looked to iron out any remaining kinks in their final preseason event of the 2010/11 season.
The game was played at a rather timid pace with the Buccaneers dominating the possession stakes. Still they struggled to create any real decent goal scoring chances.
In fact, both teams looked extremely ring rusty and there was very little goal mouth action in the opening 45 minutes. Pirates did though look the smoother of the two teams with Daine Klate and Isaac Chansa looking the most promising players on the pitch for Pirates.
Nevertheless, despite the Buccaneers playing the better football the only real chance of the half fell the way of AmaZulu in the 20th minute.
Some nice build-up play by the Usuthu saw Litha Bgxabi slip a beautiful through-ball for Ayanda Dlamini to run onto and with only the keeper to beat. Dlamini, however, squandered the golden opportunity pushing his shot just wide of the target from 12-yards out when he should have scored.
That was about as thrilling as it got in the first half. Pirates, nonetheless, will have felt going into the half time break they should have done a lot better considering they passed the ball around nicely and controlled the midfield battle.
The second half was more of the same as Pirates pressed forward in search of the opening goal, but their final pass continued to lack the quality that would lead to them breaching the AmaZulu defence.
Eventually in the 60th minute it took a piece of magic from Chansa to break the deadlock. Chasna picked the ball up in some space about 30-yards out from goal and with no other options unleashed a pile-driver that sailed into the bottom right-hand corner of the net, 1-0.
Following the goal no side managed to create any further chances on goals. Pirates continued to control the flow and pace of the game and comfortably held onto their lead to make their way into the Telkom Charity Cup final.
AmaZulu FC (0) 0
Orlando Pirates (0) 1 (Chansa 60’)