MTN8 FACTS AND RECORDS
Orlando Pirates vs Swallows FC
McCarthy performed miracles with AmaZulu last season to take them to second place in the league, but can he repeat it? Can he fulfil his promise of providing the club with silverware?
Tinkler returns to City, where he had been successful before, lifting the Telkom Knockout in the inaugural season of the club and taking them to third.
After a few mediocre campaigns, City want to be among the sides challenging for silverware again and they see Tinkler as the man to get them there.
They have lost in the quarterfinals in each of the last two years, in fact since McCarthy lifted the title with the club in 2018.
AmaZulu have not played in the MTN8 since the 2012 edition, and have in fact only appeared twice before in the PSL era. It is a trophy they have never won.
This is a fixture Usuthu have dominated since they first met in 2017. They have five wins to two for City, and their last encounter was a thumping 5-1 success in Cape Town in April.
A Soweto Derby to kick-off the season, Pirates are the current holders of the trophy after they defeated Bloemfontein Celtic 2-1 in the 2021 decider.
That ended a run of four quarterfinal exits in a row and was their first trophy success in six years to break their jinx.
They won back-to-back MTN8 titles in 2010 and 2011, and later had successive final appearances in 2013 and 2014, so will hope that means they at least make the decider again this year.
Swallows’ only appearance in the MTN8 since 2008 was the 2012 campaign after they had finished runners-up in the league the season before and they went on to lift the top-eight trophy under coach Zeca Marques, beating SuperSport United in the final.
They have not had the chance to defend that title since and given how hard to beat they were in the previous campaign, might
• This will be the 47th installment of the MTN8 competition since the first event was first staged in 1972. It has been played every year bar 1977, and 19971999, when it briefly fell off the South African football calendar. When the new Premier Soccer League was formed, the competition was done away with until being restored to the calendar in 2000.
• Kaizer Chiefs are the most successful club in MTN8 history with 15 victories from 21 final appearances. Their previous win was in 2014 when a first half goal from Tefu Mashamaite gave them a 1-0 victory over Soweto rivals Orlando Pirates. Pirates are the next most successful side with 10 title triumphs from 16 finals. After that the next highest number of wins is just three by Mamelodi Sundowns, Swallows FC, BidVest Wits and SuperSport United.
• Thirty-nine of the 46 previous winners have come from Gauteng, with three victories for the Western Cape (Santos, Ajax Cape Town and Cape Town City), and one each for the Free State (Bloemfontein Celtic), KwaZuluNatal (Lamontville Golden Arrows), Mpumalanga (Witbank Aces) and North West (Platinum Stars)
• Orlando Pirates won the first ever final as they edged Kaizer Chiefs 3-2, which included a Buccaneers debut for future Bafana Bafana coach Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba. It was Pirates’ first win over Chiefs in official competition.
• Seven finals have gone to extra-time, two involving Kaizer Chiefs (both won), Orlando Pirates (one win, one loss), SuperSport United (one win, one loss) and Cape Town City (one win, one loss). The other was between Jomo Cosmos and Moroka Swallows, and was won 3-2 by Ezenkosi.
• Six of those finals have gone to penalty shoot-outs: 2001: Kaizer Chiefs 2-2 Mamelodi Sundowns
[Chiefs won 7-6 on pens]
2008: Kaizer Chiefs 0-0 Mamelodi Sundowns
[Chiefs won 4-3 on pens]
2010: Orlando Pirates 1-1 Moroka Swallows
[Pirates won 4-2 on pens]
2013: Platinum Stars 1-1 Orlando Pirates
[Stars won 3-1 on pens]
2017: SuperSport United 1-1 Cape Town City
[United won 4-2 on pens]
2018: Cape Town City 0-0 SuperSport United
[City won 4-1 on pens]
• Two finals have gone to replays:
1988: Mamelodi Sundowns 1-1 / 1-1 Arcadia [Sundowns won replay 1-0] 1996: Orlando Pirates 1-1 QwaQwa Stars [Pirates won replay 3-0]
• The most goals scored by a player in a top eight match is five by David Dolo for Moroka Swallows as they overwhelmed Winter Roses 11-1 in the 1975 first round.
• There have not always been eight teams in the top eight competition. The league experimented with expanding the Cup and in 1975 there were 16 teams, in 1979 there were 17 and in 1976 there were 32!
• Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates are the only sides to retain the top eight trophy. Chiefs managed it in 19811982 and 1991-1992. Pirates managed it in 2010-2011. They did also win the trophy in 1996 and 2000, when there were no tournaments in between.
• The record team score in the MTN8 competition is that 11-1 win for Moroka Swallows over amateurs Winter Roses in the expanded edition in 1975.
• In 1974 there were two top eight competitions. The first was played in January and the second at the end of the season in December.
• The first ever penalty shootout in the tournament came in 1976 when amateurs Malimo from Welkom upset Bloemfontein Celtic 4-2 on spot-kicks after a 1-1 draw in the opening round. The record penalty shootout score is 9-8 in favour of Dynamos over Swallows in their 1981 semifinal replay.
• In 1975, Manguang United had to forfeit their match against Pirates because they could not obtain enough petrol for their trip to Johannesburg. There were fuel restrictions in those days.
• There have been three cup final hat tricks in the competition’s history – Ace Ntsoelengoe for Chiefs against AmaZulu in 1976, Marks Maponyane for Chiefs against Rangers in 1987 and Phil Masinga for Jomo Cosmos against Chiefs in 1991, when despite his three goals he still finished on the losing side.
• Three own goals were scored in the final when Arcadia beat Wits in the first leg of the 1986 decider in Durban, including a spectacular diving header into his own net by Arcs’ centre back Dave Bukowski.
• The only time the two legs of the final ended tied and the competition needed a final replay was in 1988 when Sundowns edged out neighbours Arcadia, in a match not allowed in Pretoria but played instead at the Rand Stadium in Johannesburg.
• SuperSport United are the only team to appear in every season of the MTN8 competition that was played since the launch of the PSL in the 1996/97 campaign. fancy their chances, though you would think penalties would come in along the way with how they tend to draw games.
These two sides have not met in a cup game in 10 years, which was a Telkom Knockout quarterfinal that Pirates won 2-1.
Their previous MTN8 clash was in the final in 2010 which Pirates won 4-2 on penalties.
The first-ever match in this competition was a semifinal tie in 1972 that saw Pirates come from 3-1 down at half-time to Swallows, including two goals from their former star Percy Moloi, who had moved to The Birds, to win 4-3 at the Orlando Stadium. Blessing Mgidi got a hat trick for the victors.
Only four teams, Pirates, Swallows, Kaizer Chiefs and PUBS contested that first tournament.
The duo also contested the finals in 1974 and 1979, recording one win each.
Perhaps not surprisingly they played to a pair of 1-1 draws in the league last season.
Lamontville Golden Arrows’ 6-0 victory over Ajax Cape Town in the 2009 MTN8 decider is not only the biggest winning 1972 – Nick Koapeng (Orlando Pirates)
1973 – Kaizer Motaung (Kaizer Chiefs)
1974 (January) – Tony Sanderson (Orlando Pirates) 1974 (December) – Eddie Lewis (Kaizer Chiefs) 1975 – Joseph Moloi (Moroka Swallows)
1976 – Eddie Lewis & Elkiam Khumalo (Kaizer Chiefs) 1977 – no competition
1978 – Stanley Tshabalala (Orlando Pirates) 1979 – Antonio Faria (Moroka Swallows)
1980 – Thomas Ngobe (Witbank Black Aces) 1981 – Chris Ngcobo (Kaizer Chiefs)
1982 – Kaizer Motaung (Kaizer Chiefs)
1983 – Brian Goldrick (Orlando Pirates)
1984 – Julie Kaplan (Wits University)
1985 – Joe Frickleton (Kaizer Chiefs)
1986 – Stan Lapot (Arcadia)
1987 – Ted Dumitru (Kaizer Chiefs)
1988 – Stanley Tshabalala (Mamelodi Sundowns) 1989 – Jeff Butler (Kaizer Chiefs)
1990 – Stanley Tshabalala (Mamelodi Sundowns) 1991 – Jeff Butler (Kaizer Chiefs)
1992 – Franky Mbale (Kaizer Chiefs)
1993 – Geoff Hudson (Orlando Pirates)
1994 – Philippe Trousier (Kaizer Chiefs) margin in an MTN8 final, but also in all domestic cup final matches in South African football history.
They have appeared in the competition twice since then, but lost in the quarterfinals on both occasions – on penalties to BidVest Wits in 2017 and 2-0 to Sundowns the following year.
SuperSport have enjoyed good recent success, beating Cape Town City in the 2017 final and getting the better of Highlands Park two years ago.
Add to that a losing final in 2018 and they made a hat-trick of appearances in the decider before losing in the semifinals to Bloemfontein Celtic last season.
It mirrored their achievement between 2004 and 2006 when they also made three final appearances in succession, though they won only one of those.
Oddly, Golden Arrows have been almost completely dominant against SuperSport recently. They have won four if the last five meetings to go with a 0-0 draw, with Matsatsantsa having a single victory in the last eight clashes.
In Cup games, they have met on six occasions, with SuperSport winning four and Abafana Bes’thede two. 1995 – John Lathan (Wits University)
1996 – Viktor Bondarenko (Orlando Pirates 1997-99 – no competition
2000 – Gordon Igesund (Orlando Pirates)
2001 – Muhsin Ertugral (Kaizer Chiefs)
2002 – Boebie Solomons (Santos)
2003 – Jomo Sono (Jomo Cosmos)
2004 – Pitso Mosimane (SuperSport United) 2005 – Paul Dolezar (Bloemfontein Celtic)
2006 – Ernst Middendorp (Kaizer Chiefs)
2007 – Gordon Igesund (Mamelodi Sundowns) 2008 – Muhsin Ertugral (Kaizer Chiefs)
2009 – Manqoba Mngqithi (Lamontville Golden Arrows) 2010 – Ruud Krol (Orlando Pirates)
2011 – Julio Cesar Leal (Orlando Pirates)
2012 – Rainer Zobel (Moroka Swallows)
2013 – Allan Freese (Platinum Stars)
2014 – Stuart Baxter (Kaizer Chiefs)
2015 – Roger de Sa (Ajax Cape Town)
2016 – Gavin Hunt (BidVest Wits)
2017 – Eric Tinkler (SuperSport United)
2018 – Benni McCarthy (Cape Town City)
2019 – Kaitano Tembo (SuperSport United)
2020 – Josef Zinnbauer (Orlando Pirates)