Looking for a partner: Sundowns midfielder Teko Modise. Photo: Lefty Shivambu/Gallo Images
There might be just a third of the Premier Soccer League season completed, but already there are more than a handful of astute observers who are predicting that Kaizer Chiefs’s 11-point lead at the top of the standings will be exceedingly difficult to dismantle.
Mamelodi Sundowns, who take on the league leaders at Soccer City on Saturday, will beg to differ. They reined in an 11-point deficit last season to win the title with one game to spare and, in the end, by two points.
But they will also be aware that their winning streak in the second half of last season, which proved the springboard for championship success, came without any distraction. Chiefs let their lead slip as the rigours of the African Champions League combined to sap energy and confidence out of the team.
Next year, both Sundowns and Chiefs play in the Champions League and Sundowns, in particular, have made much of the fact they want to do well in the pan-African competition. It is inevitable that their focus will be divided and, if they allow Chiefs too much of a lead by the time of the mid-season break at Christmas, it will be too tough a task to try to catch up with them again once the season resumes in mid-February.
This means that Saturday’s meeting between the two sides takes on an importance that far exceeds its placement on the fixture schedule, with some 20 rounds of league action still to come.
Overwhelming start
Chiefs are 11 points ahead of second-placed Chippa United but actually 12 ahead of Sundowns. Amakhosi have won nine of 10 league games and dropped just two points in a draw with Moroka Swallows. Rarely has a side made such an overwhelming start to a season.
Sundowns have been hugely inconsistent but have not lost in their last six league games. But they have been dropping points – their last three league matches have all been drawn.
Coach Pitso Mosimane continues to tinker with his line-up in attack, looking for the right creative partner for Teko Modise and the best finishing partner for Cuthbert Malajila.
Each recent line-up has seen him try a different option but he looks no closer to finding a solution.
Both clubs will be anxious in the build-up over the fitness of key players who have spent the past 10 days away on international duty and only returned to training on Friday, leaving them with just a single preparatory training session back at their clubs before the Soccer City clash.
Chiefs have five players in the Bafana Bafana squad, which returned from Nigeria on Thursday morning, while Sundowns have a single Bafana squad member, but other players were on duty with national teams in Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia.