Chippa United head coach Kwanele Kopo has revealed the reason rising star Azola Matrose played no part in Wednesday's defeat to Orlando Pirates, who released him prior to the beginning of the season.
The Chilli Boys started their 24/25 season on the back foot after suffering a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to The Buccaneers at Orlando Stadium on Wednesday.
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The visitors had opened the scoring through former Buccaneer Jali before Pirates responded a minute later through Tshegofatso Mabasa from the spot kick.
The second half was another tightly contested encounter and looked destined for a draw until Saleng headed the ball past Chippa's Stanley Nwabali in added time to secure all three points for Pirates.
Despite making the substitute bench, Matrose played no part in the fixture against his former side on his first return to Orlando Stadium since his surprise exit last month.
The speedy 21-year-old had spent two seasons contracted to Pirates – one of which he spent on loan at Chippa before surprisingly sealing a move back to his boyhood club.
Speaking to media after the match, Kopo explained why Matrose was not involved on Wednesday evening.
"Azola joined us on the 17th of last month, which was way into pre-season, and when he joined he still had two weeks of rehab, he was still doing rehab from an injury that he had at Pirates," Kopo explained.
"So, for the first two weeks, he didn't really train with us. We were up here in Jo'burg for a camp, to play friendly games, and that's when he joined us.
"He didn't feature in any of those friendly games because he was doing rehab.
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"So Azola has only trained maybe the last three weeks. We brought him here also from a psychological perspective, that he has only played for Orlando Pirates, that if the opportunity was there to put him in, we would have loved to put him in.
"But with the intensity of the game – we had that talk on the bench about putting him in, but the challenge we had is that we had already made substations on the positions that he could come in and play.
"Azola either plays left wing, number 10 or right wing and we already had Sithole, Azola Ntsako and we had [Aphelele] Teto coming in, so the only option that was left was to take Eva Nga out, but we felt the height of the team would drop.
"Eva also helps us with set pieces,
"So yes, the plan was for us to give him a few minutes, but the situation did not allow that, so when we took out Eva, we had to bring on Justice.
"So we are still hoping that we can load minutes in him through these games."