HERE COMES THE FOREIGN LEGION
THIS year’s edition of the MTN 8 is shaping up to be the battle between local and foreign coaches.
It is already guaranteed that we will have two foreign and two local coaches in the semi finals.
The foreigners are pitted against each other while the locals will also battle it out the quarterfinals.
SA coaches have been dominant in the past three seasons.
Last season, EricTinkler guided SuperSport United to glory as he downed Cape Town City at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban in the final.
In 2016/17, Bidvest Wits’ Gavin Hunt swept past Mamelodi Sundowns 3-0 in the final of the competition at Mbombela Stadium in Mpumalanga
The 2015/16 season saw the former Bafana Bafana players, Roger de Sa and Steve Komphela coming up against each other, with De Sa reigning supreme at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
The incumbent Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter is the last foreign manager to lift the MTN 8 triumph, after his Chiefs side defeated Orlando Pirates 1-0 at Moses Mabhida Stadium in 2014/15.
Pitso Mosimane, Clinton Larsen, Micho Sredojevic, Kaitano Tembo, Giovanni Solinas, Luc Eymael, Fadlu Davids and Benni McCarthy will all strive to guide their respective sides to the R8 million prize money.
In the first battle of the locals, Mosimane will welcome compatriot Larsen to Lucas Moripe Stadium at 3pm when Sundowns lock horns with Golden Arrows on Saturday.
Neither coach has laid their hands on the MTN 8 crown since the communication giants started sponsoring the competition back in 2008.
Mosimane has lifted all the important cups during his tenure with Sundowns but there’s one missing – the MTN 8.
The former Bafana Bafana coach joined Sundowns in 2012, and has amassed a staggering seven trophies during his spell with the club.
He boasts three League triumphs, a Nedbank Cup title, a Telkom Knockout crown, the Caf Champions League and the Caf Super Cup.
Mosimane is still searching for his maiden MTN 8 crown.
The last time he won the Top 8 competition was back in 2004 when he was at SuperSport United, and it was called SAA Supa 8 at the time.
That 1-0 win over Chiefs marked his first ever title as a coach and set the tone for a highly successful career.
Sundowns played out to a 1-1 stalemate against Amakhosi this past weekend in their first Absa Premiership match of the season.
The Brazilians will be looking to dump Arrows in the first hurdle of the MTN 8 campaign.
There’s no doubt that they will be well aware it won’t be easy. Larsen has humbled Sundowns and Mosimane before.
It was him who handed the league title to Chiefs at the expense of Sundowns when he was at Celtic in 2012/13. Larsen led Phunya Sele Sele to a 5-0 hammering of Sundowns, thus gifting Chiefs the title.
Larsen also knocked Sundowns out of the MTN 8 in 2015 when Celtic outshone the reigning league champions in the quarterfinal of the competition.
In 2016/17, Arrows beat the odds when they emerged victorious against Sundowns away in the last 16 of the Nedbank Cup thanks to a moment of brilliance from Nduduzo Sibiya.
Larsen and his troops will bank on all those good memories when they visit Sundowns on Saturday.
The 6pm kickoff will see the battle of the foreigners.
Amakhosi will battle it out with Free State Stars in the repeat of last season Nedbank Cup semifinals.
Solinas will be up against his former side as he tries to help Chiefs end their barren run.
Amakhosi are trophyless in the past three seasons, and Solinas has replaced the embattled Steve Komphela at the helm of the Naturena-based clubi.
He is under pressure to deliver as soon as possible.
Free State Stars’ Luc Eymael will have a huge say when these sides meet.
This is the same man who brought misery to Naturena last season as he smashed Chiefs 2-0 at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium.
The game saw the end of Komphela’s tenure at Chiefs.
Stars started the season on the back foot this past weekend, succumbing 3-0 to Bidvest Wits.
Solinas and Eymael will be looking to reach the last four of the competition as they aim to end the dominance of the local coaches in the MTN 8.
Orlando Pirates and the defending champions, SuperSport United will round off the action at 8.30pm at Orlando Stadium in Soweto in the third quarterfinal.
Micho Sredojevic is still searching for his maiden trophy with the the Buccaneers, and is facing a mammoth task of first having to go past the defending champions.
Pirates will fancy themselves at home, though the club is going through a four year trophy drought.
It won’t be easy though as SuperSport have enjoyed a good cup history against Pirates, getting the better of them in the Nedbank Cup in 2016 and 2017.
Tembo, who was an assistant coach when United downed Pirates in back-to-back Nedbank Cup finals, will be hoping to achieve an identical result when the teams meet on Saturday night.
The Zimbabwean was recently handed a two-year contract to steer the ship.
His first big task is to defend the MTN 8 title.
Sunday will see Maritzburg United welcome Cape Town City to Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg at 3pm.
Fadlu Davids and Benni McCarthy are both only in their second seasons in charge but they both had impressive debut seasons on the bench in the last campaign.
Both coaches should be proud of having reached cup finals on debut despite falling short in their pursuit to land silverware
McCarthy was beaten by Tinkler in the final of the MTN 8 last year while Davids succumbed to Eymael in the Nedbank Cup.
So will the dominance of local coaches continue or will the ‘foreign legion’ of Solinas, Tembo, Eymael and Sredojevic reign supreme?
The weekend will reveal it all.