THE KING OF BLING
Daine Klate will look to add to an already ridiculous haul of medals on Saturday, as Bidvest Wits take on Bloemfontein Celtic in the Telkom Knockout final at Princess Magogo Stadium.
The 32-year-old has torn up the record books in his time as a Premier Soccer League player, winning 14 major domestic trophies with SuperSport United, Orlando Pirates and Wits. In helping the Clever Boys lift the Absa Premiership title last season, Klate be- came the only PSL player to have ever won six top flight gold medals.
He also has four top eight titles and three South African FA Cup winners’ gongs, with the league cup (TKO) the only trophy he has won just once, with Pirates in 2012.
“I think this is my 15th cup final, it might be my 16th, and I think I have won about half, I have always said that to be successful you have to win some and lose some and my career is the perfect example of that,” said Klate this week at Wits training.
“I have lost the Champions League final, the MTN8 and the Nedbank final … but if I win the Telkom I will have won every cup at least twice.”
The running joke is that Klate has more medals than Bafana caps, and that is unlikely to change, given the winger’s age, though Kaizer Chiefs’ Siphiwe Tshabalala will no doubt attest that nothing is impossible after his appearance in the recent World Cup qualifier against Senegal.
“It’s the truth, I have less Bafana caps than I have cup medals. That is one area of my career that hasn’t gone my way but I have made my peace. I have two young boys and hopefully they can have better international careers than me,” said Klate.
This has been a strange season thus far for Wits, with the run to the TKO final in sharp contrast to their awful form in the Premiership – the reigning champions have won just two of their 11 games and are bottom of the log.
“I think with cup games you have to take each game as it comes, and for me personally, I am getting a bit older, so you never know when it is going to be your last (match). You should go into every game and play as if it is your last … we will worry about the league after the cup final,” added Klate.