Golden Arrows envisage to playing their full-fledged team that displays attacking football. That will be handy for an afternoon entertainment than a bull-fighting encounter.
The truth be told, the Happy People should have wrapped this title weeks back when they chose to draw easy matches. They quickly learnt to convert a substandard product into a 'hot cake' as seen by the dramatic late surges that catapulted them to the log summit in the past weeks.
Even the events of last week could have ended the title contention by now bitter rivals, Moroka Swallows, had the Dube Birds failed to squeeze what ended up looking as an easy win against Platinum Stars.
A loss or draw for them in that match could have ended the ABSA Premier League with a match to spare. Pirates were guilty of missing seater after seater in their matches, but fighting strong to the end and proving to be worthy of being champions.
The fast paced and entertaining style of free-flowing football will be expected to be the order of the day at the KZN and hopefully, more chances will be created and a higher conversion rate will be mandatory, not that goals matter.
Swallows are a force to reckon with themselves, given the record of their mentor, Gordon Igesund who has four different titles under his belt.
With the resurgent free-scoring Siyabonga Nomvete on a purple patch, they will terrorise Maritzburg United and the pressure of the day may see them drop points. Winning it would make it interesting though it will count for nothing.
While Igesund holds this record with two other coaches in the domestic scene, his peers had it easy in doing so with the same teams that normally had class and resources. His story has always been that like the Swallows that he rescued from relegation only less than a year ago, into contenders today.
The Birds will come out consoling themselves of that feat, which deserves an applause, but they will live to fight another day. For sentimental reasons, it would be lovely to have a local coach prove me right that we are better than expats.
Regardless of how lekker local can be, as Igesund is, teams like Kaizer Chiefs will keep forking out cool rands for questionable characters.
Not that Stuart Baxter is questionable in his ability given his invisible successes, but the story of his forged CV explains how the rest of the unknowns from Eastern Europe arrive with long resumes made in the backyard and destroy African football and eventually become permanent citizens of the continent.
While being so grateful of this colonisation, the Bucs are mentored by Honduran (or is he Peruvian) Augusto Palacious. He gets favours as a coach just because he is a Buccaneers and is temporary.
Thina ubunandi siyazenzela.
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