Andile Jali impact hailed by Chippa United coach Kwanele Kopo

Jali, who had spent six months without a club after leaving Swallows at the start of 2024, played his first official game since November last year. 

Kopo says the 34-year-old is playing a big role in the team, especially in guiding his younger teammates.

"As you say, you can see he's been massive for the club. Since he's joined us, Andile has trained very hard, after a couple of months of no activity at all – having left Swallows in November," said Kopo.

"When we started pre-season, he's been in at training an hour before everybody else in the gym, and he's not 100 per cent yet, but because of the challenges we have in central midfield, we felt that even if he gave us 60 minutes, we were hoping he could give us leadership.

"And we knew with him, we'd be able to be on the ball more, so we've got a youngster playing centre-back, Thabang Malaoa, who hasn't played much, and we needed an Andile to guide our build-up – to give these youngsters confidence."

Jali, who hails from Matatiele in the Eastern Cape, opened the scoring with a stunning strike from the edge of the box in the 22nd minute. 

Kopo believes this goal is going to play a big role in boosting the player’s confidence going forward.

"Andile's going to play a massive role in the team, and I'm so happy for him that he scored because so many people would have probably expected the worst," the coach added.

"'Ah, he's going to come back overweight', and all that, but I think the quality shows that he's there, and the fitter he gets, I think the stronger he's going to make us become.

"So his influence is massive for us, he's the coach on the field that we need, and I think he's going to really help the team going forward, together with Stanley [Nwabali], Justice [Chabalala], and Eva [Nga] up front – they form the spine of the team."

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