It’s not déjà vu. It’s yet another Mamelodi Sundowns versus Orlando Pirates showdown at the Loftus stadium on Sunday.
It is now history that Sundowns won 3-1 in the Coca-Cola Cup last Sunday in what was rightly billed as the match of the round.
This week is back to the bread and butter of the game, the League honours. The two teams have never been more evenly matched going into this fixture.
They have similarities ranging from the chairman’s office to the bookkeeper’s expense accounts.
Pirates are top of the log with Sundowns second. They are level on points and goal difference, with the Bucs taking the top spot merely because they have scored more goals than Sundowns, although Downs have conceded fewer goals.
This match is more than a six-pointer and a top-of-the-table clash, a lot more is at stake. The Pirates’ faithful left Loftus a cheerful lot last week despite their loss.
They were heartened by the fact that the youthful Pirates side dominated proceedings for considerable periods despite playing with 10 men for 75 minutes. The battle cry this time has been that it will be 11 men against 11. Unless, of course, someone does something petulant and gets a red card. Like Steve Lekoelea did last week, retaliating against a bad tackle from a Sundowns player.
This weekend’s fixture will be an opportunity for the management of the two clubs to evaluate their spending patterns and assess the wisdom of their investment strategies.
Sundowns are called the millionaires thanks to the generosity of mining magnate Patrice Motsepe who has spared no expense buying any player on coach Paul Dolezar’s wish list. And Motsepe’s investment seems to be working for now, with Downs unbeaten in all competitions this season. It is a far cry from the last two seasons where the team could not even make it to the Top 8 competition.
Pirates too are unbeaten in the League, but their cup hoodoo continued past week, with the famous Soweto side again failing to progress to the second round of any competition in many years. They too have spent millions on their squad. Unlike Sundowns, Pirates have spent the money — R4-million a year — on creating a youth development academy that is starting to churn out new stars each season.
Last week’s fixture saw five players — Gift Leremi, Phumudzo Manenzhe, Benedict Vilakazi, Joseph Makhanya and Lebohang Mokoena — schooled through the club’s youth teams, do battle.
In the end though, it was the expensive, finished product acquisitions Esrom Nyandoro, Rotson Kilambe and the country’s highest-paid star Peter Ndlovu, who won it for Sundowns.
In the unlikely event that the match becomes a bore, the two club chairmen, Irvin Khoza and Motsepe, could exchange notes about how they each deal with business rivals.
The two men, Motsepe as National African Federated Chamber of Commerce president and Khoza as Premier Soccer League chairperson, have in the last few weeks been accused by their detractors of holding too much power in their respective organisations.
The chairmen will therefore look to the pitch for some respite from the harsh world of business. And unlike last week, there does not have to be only one winner. It could, on current form, again be a draw. And, like last week, send supporters of both teams home happy. In which case, it actually might be déjà vu.