Saturday provides Kaizer Chiefs fans with what has become a rare opportunity: knowing their team will not play to a draw.
It is Coca-Cola Cup weekend and the rules of the competition insist on a result from all matches. If the teams are tied at the end of normal time, then it will be settled on penalties.
This means that Chiefs, who meet the Pietermaritzburg-based Tembisa Classic at Olympia Stadium in Rustenburg on Saturday, will break their string of five successive draws.
For the odd Chiefs fan who is enjoying this run, the two sides meet again next Wednesday in the Premier Soccer League (PSL), where Amakhosi can go for a single point.
But coach Ernst Middendorp hopes his players give a performance better than ”this shit” — as he described last weekend’s match against Moroka Swallows that ended 1-1. It was Chiefs’ seventh draw in 10 league matches.
If they keep up this rate, they could easily match their record of most draws a season they set in the 2001/02 season when 13 of their matches ended in a stalemate. The club has averaged 10,5 draws a season since the PSL began.
But this is the Coca-Cola Cup, so Chiefs’ fans and management have reason to be optimistic.
Chiefs have dominated the tournament since its return five seasons ago, winning the cup three times and being runners-up to Jomo Cosmos in 2002/3.
If Chiefs win on Saturday, as even their most pessimistic supporter would expect, they will join Jomo Cosmos, Orlando Pirates, Santos, Ajax Cape Town, Mamelodi Sundowns, Supersport United and the winner between Bloemfontein Celtic and Dynamos — who meet at Vodacom Park on Sunday — in the quarterfinals draw.
Classic, on the other hand, will fancy their chances against a side that has lost the aura of invincibility usually associated with those playing in the colours of South Africa’s original glamour club.
The PSL rookies go to the North West city fresh from a 0-3 reverse against Sundowns but would do well to remember that pedigree still counts for something in this game.
Everyone at Chiefs will be hoping that the mere right to step out wearing the gold and black with the sponsor’s logo on their chest will remind the players just how much the trophy is regarded as naturally belonging in Naturena.
Failure in Rustenburg could see it being the turn of Chiefs’ fans to tell the already unpopular Middendorp that they too are ”fed up with this shit”. And we know how fiery they can be.