Chiefs’ CAF campaign is really important – Billiat

Khama Billiat of Kaizer Chiefs during the 2020/21 CAF Champions League football match between Kaizer Chiefs and Primeiro de Agosto

by Graeme Jackson

Thursday Jan 07, 2021. 18:00

Kaizer Chiefs attacker Khama Billiat has described the team’s CAF Champions League campaign as “really important” and says they have the ambition to go as deep as possible in the 2020-21 continental competition.

The South African heavyweights secured a place in the CAFCL group stage – for the first time in their history – earlier this week, with a 1-0 aggregate win over Angola’s Primeiro de Agosto.

The Amakhosi’s success in the Champions League has been in stark contrast to their domestic campaign, where manager Gavin Hunt’s team has won just one of their opening eight matches in the DStv Premiership.

“It’s really important for us as well to go and test ourselves with the rest of the Champions League giants. It really gives us confidence as well, going back to our domestic competition,” Billiat told Chiefs’ media, as quoted by Goal.

“We really want to go all the way, we want to make a difference, we want to push ourselves to the limit and to see how far we can go and how far we can compete in Africa. It’s really important.

“We give credit to the guys, we worked so hard, we stuck to the plan and it wasn’t easy. It’s going to be very tough, but we can only learn and grow as a team and make sure we gel together and fight for one another.

“I personally believe that everyone wants to go all the way. We really need to be the generation to actually do what the best generation of this club has done.

“This club has a very good history and we don’t want to be the ones that are not pulling up the weight. We want to do what they have done and we want to make our chairman proud. It has been long.”

Chiefs will find out their group stage opponents when the draw is conducted in Cairo on Friday, while Saturday will see them host Maritzburg United in the domestic league.