Striker David Zulu made his name through Chippa United, which makes it fitting that he finds his way back to the Eastern Cape club in search of form and fitness.
Joining Kaizer Chiefs is almost every player’s dream but when it happens, it does not always go along swimmingly.
Zulu played a quiet but critical role in Chippa United’s 2-0 win against Golden Arrows at the Chatsworth Stadium on Saturday.
The plaudits did not all fall to him though, as Buyani Sali and Thamsanqa Sangweni engineered the win with a solid midfield performance that exposed the achilles heel that is the Golden Arrows midfield. The on-loan attacking player is just happy to be getting some game-time after a frustrating spell on the sidelines with an injury.
It was also coupled with the inability to break through into Chiefs’s starting 11, which has some excellent attacking players.
“I could say it was my decision to come back to Chippa because I felt that as a player I needed some game-time and people know me as a footballer.
“Therefore I need to do my job as a footballer and when you sit down and become inactive, people will forget about you,” Zulu said.
“When you’re a footballer, you want to take part in each match and when you don’t play for quite some time, you tend to get lost in the system.
“Doubts start creeping into your mind about your efficiency as a footballer and you start questioning yourself.
“I just came back to Chippa so I can play and I’ll see what happens at the end of the season.”
Zulu’s cracking goal-scoring form at Chippa United and Black Leopards saw him catapulted into Bafana Bafana reckoning.
Bench and injury time did not help realise those opportunities though, and he has been overtaken by the likes of Orlando Pirates’s Thamsanqa Gabuza.
But he feels he may have a lot more to prove at Chiefs when his loan deal expires.
“This is an opportunity for me to show people that I’m still around and I can still play good enough football to be selected for the national team should the opportunity arise.
“For now that’s important but the fact that I’ve fitted in seamlessly shows that I carried myself during the time when I was injured,” Zulu said.
“At Chiefs I learnt how to handle myself better as a professional but also how to deal with pressure because Chiefs are a big team.
“I feel that I’ve grown as a player and a person but being with Chippa is just another step in my life and not about me taking a step back.”
Zulu’s move ‘not a step back’
Joining Kaizer Chiefs is almost every player’s dream but when it happens, it does not always go along swimmingly.
Zulu played a quiet but critical role in Chippa United’s 2-0 win against Golden Arrows at the Chatsworth Stadium on Saturday.
The plaudits did not all fall to him though, as Buyani Sali and Thamsanqa Sangweni engineered the win with a solid midfield performance that exposed the achilles heel that is the Golden Arrows midfield. The on-loan attacking player is just happy to be getting some game-time after a frustrating spell on the sidelines with an injury.
It was also coupled with the inability to break through into Chiefs’s starting 11, which has some excellent attacking players.
“I could say it was my decision to come back to Chippa because I felt that as a player I needed some game-time and people know me as a footballer.
“Therefore I need to do my job as a footballer and when you sit down and become inactive, people will forget about you,” Zulu said.
“When you’re a footballer, you want to take part in each match and when you don’t play for quite some time, you tend to get lost in the system.
“Doubts start creeping into your mind about your efficiency as a footballer and you start questioning yourself.
“I just came back to Chippa so I can play and I’ll see what happens at the end of the season.”
Zulu’s cracking goal-scoring form at Chippa United and Black Leopards saw him catapulted into Bafana Bafana reckoning.
Bench and injury time did not help realise those opportunities though, and he has been overtaken by the likes of Orlando Pirates’s Thamsanqa Gabuza.
But he feels he may have a lot more to prove at Chiefs when his loan deal expires.
“This is an opportunity for me to show people that I’m still around and I can still play good enough football to be selected for the national team should the opportunity arise.
“For now that’s important but the fact that I’ve fitted in seamlessly shows that I carried myself during the time when I was injured,” Zulu said.
“At Chiefs I learnt how to handle myself better as a professional but also how to deal with pressure because Chiefs are a big team.
“I feel that I’ve grown as a player and a person but being with Chippa is just another step in my life and not about me taking a step back.”
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