Steve beats Micho for ‘experience’

But having more Soweto derbies under your belt doesn’t guarantee success

THE ABSA Premiership trophy, normally a prop in Soweto Derby press conferences with Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates fighting only for pride in the last two seasons, shone a bit brighter as the backdrop to yesterday’s conference.

It was quite fitting that coach Milutin “Micho” Sredojevic and Happy Jele were closer to the trophy than Ramahlwe Mphahlele and his coach Steve Komphela.

After all the Buccaneers are a point ahead of Amakhosi.

The big story of this derby, however, is that for the first time in a long while both teams are championship contenders – Pirates trail league-leaders Mamelodi Sundowns by four points and Chiefs five points adrift of the Brazilians.

Sredojevic and Komphela are searching for their first derby win in the league which would be even sweeter as it would give them an edge in the championship race.

“One is tempted to ask, ‘could it be that whoever wins the match on Saturday will go on to challenge for the championship?’ Possibly!,” Komphela, ever the philosopher said.

“f you go back and check the remaining matches of the three teams (Sundowns, Pirates and Chiefs) there are teams who have to play against all these three teams,” the Chiefs coach continued “You have four teams like that. It tells you how tight it is. From that perspective it starts to help you how to plan for this match and what could happen when those teams meet the other two.” Komphela will lead Amakhosi for the eighth time in the Soweto Derby while Sredojevic will be in charge of only his third. Komphela has a slight edge over Sredojevic in terms of experience but the Serbian has worked in more matches of this nature than Komphela. Sredojevic was involved in Uganda’s biggest derby between SC Villa and Express, the biggest derby in Ethiopia between Saint George and Coffee and the biggest derby in Tanzania, Young Africans v Simba.

“There is one simple rule to prepare for matches of this magnitude, never do anything different in your preparations,” Sredojevic said. “This is the rule. We are making things normal as much as possible. And with regards to this being called a boring derby, you need to know that this is like two armies clashing. The desire of one army stops the other army from expressing themselves as best as they possibly can. What I mean is that we are coming with an intention to win by making players mentally stronger. We really try. One moment of brilliance is likely to decide the game. We shall do everything possible to make sure that it goes our way.”

The Buccaneers come into this match with more confidence having come from behind to beat Chippa United 4-2 in an entertaining match in Port Elizabeth. Amakhosi,on the other hand, drew with Bloemfontein Celtic and thus failed to gain ground on Sundowns who had slipped up during the day.

“My experiences in the derby have been wonderful,” Komphela said. “I have sat opposite so many of my colleagues from Pirates. I have had great memories and we share great ideas. There are quite a number of things I picked up. Derbies are so unique that results and form go out of the window. You’ve never had a team play well for both halves, one does well in the first half and the other does well in the next. Such insight has prepared me

well.”