Cape Town - Fadlu Davids believes the growth of
Cape Town City over the past two seasons is not by chance as he prepares
his Maritzburg United to face the new MTN8 champions in an Absa Premiership
encounter on Friday.
The clash at the Harry Gwala Stadium will be the second in four days for the Team of Choice and third in seven for the Citizens, who began their sequence by ousting SuperSport United to the top-eight title. But they suffered a hangover in midweek when they lost 2-0 at home to Bidvest Wits, while United drew the KwaZulu-Natal derby 0-0 with AmaZulu in Durban.
Fourteenth-placed City also beat Maritzburg in the opening round of the MTN8 earlier in the season and Davids is hopeful they will be better prepared this time."They deserved to beat us and they deserved to win the cup," he said."We were still finding our feet at that time, so hopefully we will be better this time.
"Cape Town City have shown good growth and have developed under a rapid pace in the last two seasons. Benni McCarthy has added to that and they are an excellent team. We will have to be on top of our game to get the result."
Maritzburg, who are 13th, will be without the injured duo of Keagan Buchanan and Yazid Atouba, while Tokelo Rantie could be fit to make his first appearance since his big move to Cape Town.