The game on Saturday between Kaizer Chiefs and Wits University in the Coca-Cola Cup may not be on the same level of intensity and pride as that of the Soweto Derby rivalry, but it is one that can conjure up the biggest upset in the Coke competition to date since the Coke Challenge of 1995.

The 2004 African Cup of Nations is looming, with Bafana Bafana having just two more preparation games and the man at the helm of the national team has finally to separate the wheat from the chaff. Next month Ephraim ”Shakes” Mashaba will announce the players who will help him restore some pride.

The Coca-Cola Cup competition, worth R2-million, draws closer to the final, but for now the fans of Kaizer Chiefs, Golden Arrows, Wits University and Silver Stars will have to watch their teams fight it out in the semi-finals.

D-Day has arrived for the South African 2010 bid company. Five inspectors from world soccer’s governing body, Fifa, arrived on Thursday to see for themselves whether South Africa is ready to host the World Cup in 2010. Only African countries are in the running for 2010.

Just seven games into the Premier Soccer League (PSL) season and already there has been lots of drama – and for once the players are not the centre of attention. The standard of referees has declined to such an extent that clubs never know what to expect from the man with the whistle.

Athens, and the Olympic Games, is where Banyana Banyana and the men’s under-23 team would like to be next year. But to get there, Banyana need to go through gruelling elimination rounds, while Amaglug-glug have to come out tops in Group D, which also contains Algeria, Zambia and Ghana.

A huge financial carrot is offered to clubs to accept the reshaping of the current unwieldy 30-team system. The South African first division will undergo a radical overhaul next season when the 16-team inland stream and the 14-team coastal stream are merged into a single 16-team league.

Rarely in soccer do two clubs with such totally different styles of play meet in the final of a major knockout cup as they do in Sunday’s culmination of the inaugural South African Airways Super 8 competition.

As Pirates fans deliriously celebrate their second premiership title in three years, the frenzy should not be so much out of jubilation but relief. For, in what was supposed to be a shorter season because of fewer teams, the Buccaneers were rarely swashbuckling and instead mostly rugged Sea Robbers.

The South African Airways Super 8 Cup took off on Women’s Day and began dropping off passengers — including favourites Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates — the same day.