HERE COMES THE
THIS year’s edition of the MTN 8 is shaping up to be all about the battle between local and foreign coaches. In fact it is already practically guaranteed that we will have two foreign and two local coaches in the semi-finals.
The foreigners are pitted against each other in one end of the draw while the locals will also battle it out in the quarterfinals, and thus far, as far as this competition is concerned, the SA coaches have been dominant in the past three seasons.
Last season, Eric Tinkler guided SuperSport United to glory as he downed Cape Town City at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. Then in 2016/17
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 face off, with
De Sa in the end reigning supreme at the Nelson
Mandela Bay
Stadium.
Here’s an interesting fact: the incumbent
Bafana Bafana coach
Stuart Baxter is the last foreign manager to lift the MTN 8 trophy after his Chiefs side defeated
Orlando Pirates 1-0 at Moses Mabhida in
2014/15.
The line-up is impressive this season;
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 prizemoney on offer.
In the first battle of the locals, Mosimane will welcome compatriot
Larsen to Lucas Moripe
Stadium on Saturday when Sundowns lock horns with Golden
Arrows at 3pm. Neither coach has laid their hands on the MTN
8 crown since the telecommunications company started sponsoring the competition a decade ago.
Mosimane has some pedigree though; he has lifted all the important cups during his tenure with Sundowns The former Bafana
Bafana coach joined Sundowns in 2012, and has amassed a staggering seven trophies during in his spell with the club. He boasts three League triumphs,a Nedbank Cup title, a Telkom Knockout crown, the Caf Super Cup and the Caf Champions League. But there’s one missing that he’s dying to get his hands on – the MTN 8.
Technically Mosimane won the Top 8 competition in 2004 when he was at SuperSport United – it was still called SAA Super 8 at that time. Mosimane’s charges dethroned Kaizer Chiefs in the final to be crowned the SAA Super 8 champions. Sundowns need to sharpen their game after they played out to a
1-1 stalemate against Amakhosi this past weekend in their first Absa Premiership match of the season. Masandawana will be looking to dump Arrows in this, their first hurdle of their MTN 8 campaign. There’s no doubt that they will be well aware it won’t be easy. Larsen has humbled 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. Celtic hammered Sundowns
5-0 and Chiefs went on to be crowned the Absa Premiership champions.
Larsen also knocked Sundowns out of the
MTN 8 in 2015 when Celtic outshone the reigning league champions in the quarterfinals of the competition. In 2016/17, Arrows beat the odds again when they emerged victorious against Sundowns away in the last 16 of the Nedbank