Highlands Park are on a knife edge.
Club owners have clearly suffered a number of sleepless nights as the reality of relegation finally hit home this week. The five clubs at the bottom of the PSL table are now locked in an unenviable dogfight to escape the dreaded axe, or at least hoping to live to fight another season in the elite division through promotional play-offs.
And though most are scratching their heads, trying to figure out where it went wrong, the co-director of second-from-bottom Highlands Park has thrown down the kind of challenge that could only be described as a death wish.
Coming up against Mamelodi Sundowns, who are desperate to finish runners-up to qualify for the CAF Champions League next year, Larry Brookstone challenged the Brazilians to “bring it on in Tembisa and let’s get it on!”
“I am not going to dwell on what could have been. The bottom line is that they (Sundowns) must come to play and we must also play. What will be would be and there is no running away,” Brookstone said.
“We are not scared. If anything, Maritzburg United proved that you can score against Sundowns. We have a game plan and I hope they have theirs. We know our lives depend on the outcome and so we are going to give it our all,” he added.
Morgan Mammila, chief executive of bottom-positioned Baroka, cannot believe fate can be so cruel to his team. Despite defeating all the top five teams in the Premier League, they now face the drop. “We cannot be beaten by a team that is already in holiday mood and have held their end of the season function,” said Mammila. “It would be a travesty of justice if we lose. We are going [to Cape Town] to collect three points.”
Free State Stars’ coach Serame Letsoaka, whose team is 14th in the league, says: “The mandate is quite simple; we cannot allow Chippa United (13th-placed) to get out of the Goble Park alive. They just have to leave the three points behind.”
But Stars are up against an equally resolute Chippa, whose coach Dan Malesela has promised the boys from Bloem the fight of their lives.
Relegation fixtures:
• Maritzburg United vs Bloemfontein Celtic
• Ajax Cape Town vs Baroka
• Highlands Park vs Mamelodi Sundowns
• Free State Stars vs Chippa United