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The Glamor Boys haven’t had the best results of late, but they still can’t give up on their goal, as their rivals did in 2011 and 2012.
The Kaizer Chiefs are currently under immense pressure to hold on to their top spot and clinch the PSL title with three games to go before the end of the season.
They have held the position for over a year after shooting to the top of the rankings in August 2019.
Breathing heavily on his neck is Mamelodi Sundowns, the defending champions seeking their third consecutive league crown and a record 10th title in the PSL era.
Interestingly, both the Sundowns and Chiefs are celebrating their 50th anniversary and have won 12 league titles each since their inception in 1970, and neither team wants to disappoint their fans after so much hard work throughout the season.
The Sundowns don’t feel the same heat as the Chiefs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to be crowned champions.
What makes things a bit easier for the Sundowns heading into the final week of the season is that they have a coach and players who have been in this situation before, and almost every member of the team knows what it takes to get through the game. stripe. at this stage, while the Chiefs only have a handful of players with the same pedigree.
And that brings us to what Amakhosi should do to fend off the pressure from Sundowns.
Of course, as a club, this is not the first time the Chiefs have to fight for the title with the Sundowns while sitting atop the log; They did it successfully during the 2014-15 season and did it impressively with 69 points, finishing a whopping 12 points ahead of Pitso Mosimane’s men at the time.
But they have lost most of the players who achieved that success, the only thing that could keep them going is to adopt the spirit of their nemesis Orlando Pirates, who, after many years of not lifting the PSL trophy, won it in two successive years between 2011 and 2012 with a team relatively similar to the Chiefs: inexperienced but full of potential.
That season, the Pirates narrowly won the league title on the final day, beating Ajax Cape Town with a superior goal difference after the two teams accumulated 60 points from 30 games.
The goal difference was just four goals and the worst part is that the Pirates had scored fewer goals (41) than Ajax (50), but had the best defensive record alongside Bloemfontein Celtic, conceding just 23 that season.
Looking back, the Pirates needed to get results in the last few games, and they did, winning a few games by a single goal, and that’s down to the belief and spirit the team had under Ruud Krol.
Mind you, last season (2009-10), the Pirates could only achieve a fifth place and there were growing calls for Krol to be fired even after narrowly losing the title to SuperSport United the year before – the sea in which the Robbers were tied for points with the Tshwane giants, but beat them on goal difference.
And the Chiefs, in their current situation, need exactly that; They must be as brave as Krol’s and die for the badge because this season would be considered a disappointment if they have nothing to show after the final match.
Another example of the Pirates’ spirit that the Chiefs must embrace and can use as motivation is when their archrivals carried the title push into the final day of the season in 2012, stealing it from Moroka Swallows who were at Maritzburg United.
At the time, the Pirates lost more games than Swallows and their goal difference was less than that of their former rivals, but what helped them was that some results kept their way in the later stages of the season, as they ended up finishing two. points before the final. Dube Birds.
At the end of the day, it is the hunger and ambition that Amakhosi players have that will determine if they can truly beat Sundowns for the title.
