Celtic went into the game as heavy underdogs, but took the early ascendancy in the 33rd minute of the crunch match with Mozambican international Helder Pelembe scoring a cracking goal from range during his Siwelele debut.

Seven minutes later, Chiefs had an opportunity to score from the spot following a foul in the area by captain Bevan Fransman. While replays suggested that the call was wrong, Fransman could count himself very lucky with a foul in the goal area constituting an automatic yellow card.

This would have seen Celtic having to complete the match with just 10 players on the park after the experienced Bafana Bafana defender received a yellow earlier in the match.

However, Bernard Parker missed the spot kick by sending the ball sailing over the crossbar and the Phunya Sele Sele went into the break leading 1-0.

Parker made up for his missed penalty in the 62nd minute by exposing the Celtic defence by sending another long range effort into the back of the net for the equaliser and leaving goalkeeper Patrick Tignyemb, who up until that stage had been superb with no chance of saving the bullet.

Celtic Coach Clinton Larsen said after the match that is’ never ideal conceding the lead.

“Ideally we didn’t want to concede the goal, you know the away goal.

“I thought that the commitment was there. I don’t think we were clinical enough on the breaks, we had lots of opportunities to be a lot more purposeful on the break and it wasn’t to be today.

“But still we created chances and credit must also go to Chiefs.

“They showed today that they are a qualify team, but it’s all to play for in the second leg.

Celtic and the Amakhosi face each in the second leg on 29 August at the FNB Stadium in Soweto.

The other semi-final saw Ajax Cape Town and Wits play to 1-1 draw in Stellenbosch on Saturday evening. 

Morgan Piek / OFM News