Fierce rivals Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns will take their last season’s fight straight onto the new arena of the DStv Premiership on 24 October.
The two giants will square up again in what is being touted as a grudge match after the Brazilians had snatched the championship rug from under the feet of AmaKhosi. The game will also open the flood gates of matches for the new season.
The only difference this time around is that both outfits will be without their former coaches, Chiefs’ Ernst Middendorp and Sundowns’ Pitso ‘Jingles’ Mosimane who have both left the clubs. Middendorp had guided his team to the summit of the former Absa Premiership log standings from the word go right up to the last match of the season when he was pipped by Mosimane to the championship trophy.
Middendorp received a ‘golden handshake’ when AmaKhosi booted him out for losing the championship so lamely at the last hurdle to an unpredictable Masandawana, while his coaching rival, Mosimane has climbed up the ladder to coach Africa’s most successful club, Al Ahly of Egypt. AmaKhosi have since taken on Gavin Hunt of the now-defunct Bidvest Wits, whose premiership status was bought by former GladAfrica Championship side Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila FC, a Limpopo outfit better known by its acronym of TTM. The Brazilians on the other hand did not change much of their coach staff except to appoint Mosimane’s former henchmen, Manqoba Mnqithi and Rhulani Mokena as joint head coaches.
The man with the last word will be Mnqithi, the former Golden Arrows head coach. Former Arrows coach Steve Komphela has been roped in at Masandawana as assistant coach to Mnqithi and Mokoena. Their brief will most probably be to carry on where Jingles left off and continue with what has become one of the country’s most well-oiled football machines. In the 2018/19 season, Masandawana also pulled the rug under the feet of Orlando Pirates to win the championship three times in a row.
All eyes will be on this opening match of the season at the FNB Stadium which is home to AmaKhosi. This will mark the start of a new sponsor, DStv, and a new trophy as Masandawana get to keep the old former Absa Premiership trophy as they have won it three times in a row. What also makes this season so exciting is the fact that there have been a number of infusions of new blood into the new premiership in the form of underdog clubs buying premiership statuses such as TS Galaxy and TTM.
Galaxy bought out financial strugglers Highlands Park. Also entering the fray is a blast from the past, Moroka Swallows. They will play as Swallows for now, pending the club’s issues with world governing body, Fifa over the previous management’s alleged financial mess. Whether the new boys on the block will spice up the football arena and set the new DStv Premiership alight, only time will tell.
