Kaizer Chiefs
It was a year to forget for the AmaKhosi, but where does the 2020-21 campaign rank among all their previous top-flight seasons?
After their dismal 2020-21 DStv Premiership season in which Kaizer Chiefs managed to salvage something on the final day by scraping into the top eight, it has been one of the worst campaigns in the club’s 51-year history. But where exactly does it place? KICK OFF’s Mark Gleeson looks back in history to tell the story of all Chiefs’ 50 completed league seasons.
In the end, Lebogang Manyama came good after a mediocre campaign and Samir Nurkovic also contributed a muchneeded goal as Kaizer Chiefs won the last two games of the 2020-21 DStv Premiership season and qualified for the MTN8.
They just crept into eighth spot, avoiding their worst league finish after spending much of the campaign outside of the top 10.
But it will still go down as a massive blow to the prestige of the team, adding more woe to a calamitous end to the 2019-20 campaign in the bio-bubble in Gauteng, where they contrived to blow a massive lead and allowed arch rivals Mamelodi Sundowns to snatch the title away from them.
Gavin Hunt was supposed to turn things around, albeit without any new players as Chiefs sat out the last two transfer windows after a doggy deal over the Malagasy international Andriamirado Aro Hasina Andrianarimanana.
There are as many letters in his name as points Chiefs managed as Hunt flopped dramatically, his Midas touch deserting him just when he reached the pinnacle of his career.
The total of 36 points in the season is their lowest ever.
Although the last two games without him in charge ensured a top eight finish, Chiefs managed for the first time to post a negative goal difference with 34 scored and 37 conceded.
It means Stuart Baxter – the last coach to take Chiefs to silverware in 2015 – gets to work with a virtually blank canvas while Chiefs’ transfer dealings in the pre-season become the most important in the cubs history.
After going six seasons with a solitary trophy, they look fading giants teetering on a cliff.
They have history on their side but resources are tight, not helped by the COVID-19 pandemic.
If it is any solace to Chiefs fans, the vast majority of the campaigns over the last 50 years have been stellar, with a handful of mediocre ones and just four horror campaigns, which includes the one just competed.