Cape Town - Steve Komphela was relieved to see Kaizer Chiefs progress to the quarter-finals of the Telkom Knockout on Saturday.
Amakhosi struggled to see off Maritzburg United at the from open play, and had to rely on a penalty shoot-out to secure their passage to the next round.
After the match, he told SuperSport: "That's the only thing we’ll celebrate, that we’re through to the next round."
The Chiefs mentor revealed that a number of omens leading up the match counted against his side, but felt the difficulties may have been the driving force behind their win.
"The performance, I thought we started very poorly, first half we gave people (the fans) nothing," Komphela said.
"Second-half it looked like there was a bit of fire and then a whole lot of other things happened and there were no lights (when the floodlights failed), a mini-storm and all that..."
"It’s surprising because even before we left the hotel,
our bus could not just come through (start) so some of these things as
they happen you think they might be signals that it’s not going to go
well," Komphela continued.
"But as soon as you come out of it you say, you know what, maybe we needed all those hiccups to see through this match."
And, on the lottery of penalties, Komphela concluded: "Penalties, could have gone either way. We practice penalties every week, it’s not only when we play a knockout competitions.
"There are areas where we did not click, we didn’t tick ... but when we wake up tomorrow, there is no comment on the result column."