Absa Premiership leaders SuperSport United, seemingly on the wrong wavelength and looking nothing like potential champions, slumped to a 2-0 defeat against a more willing and able AmaZulu at the Princess Magogo Stadium in Durban on Sunday afternoon.
Although remaining at the top of the log with a one-point advantage over Ajax Cape Town, SuperSport have played one game more than their closest rivals and have an inferior goal difference.
AmaZulu and former Bafana Bafana coach Clive Barker produced his famed victory salute by imitating a plane in full flight as Usuthu confirmed their ascendancy with a snappy, close-range goal from Siyabonga Mkhwanazi in the 28th minute and a thundering piledriver from Jan Sillo in the 85th minute.
Then to emphasise his aviation acumen in these matters, the nuggety AmaZulu coach proclaimed afterwards: ”There is only one place my team is going from now — and that is up.”
Coincidentally or otherwise, AmaZulu were boosted before the game by the appointment of former Bafana captain and Sundowns coach Neil Tovey as technical director — thereby resuming a partnership with Barker when they were at the helm at the time South Africa gained their solitary African Nations Cup title in 1996.
SuperSport rarely troubled a determined, well-organised AmaZulu defence with a succession of high, stereotyped crosses and ran out if ideas long before the end — with coach Gavin Hunt looking a forlorn figure on the bench as his team’s hopes of earning an initial league title took a nosedive. — Sapa