Big guns are about to fire again
Here we go. The PSL and English Premier League kick off the 2022-23 season this Friday night and then it’s full steam ahead with more matches in both leagues on Saturday and Sunday. TAB has come to the party with add-ins to six different soccer pools totalling R750,000 through the weekend! Great soccer action, big bucks to be won for small money, eish!
By Mark Gleeson
A new DStv Premiership season comes around again with a single favourite for the league title at the end of the campaign in May.
Few will bet against Mamelodi Sundowns completing an unprecedented six championships in a row and a record-extending 15th overall. Thanks to the deep pockets of billionaire owner Patrice Motsepe, they are the undoubted powerhouse of the domestic game and able to keep an exceptional squad of talent that leaves the rest trailing.
But there are other questions that the new season must answer, not least who will finish second behind the Brazilians.
Last season it was Cape Town City and they host the champions on Friday in the season’s opening game at Cape Town Stadium. But it was a close race with any one of five other teams in contention in the closing weeks of last season.
Second place is more coverted than ever because it offers a place in the next season’s African Champions League.
The biggest questions, however, are whether Kaizer Chiefs can end their seven-year trophy drought or whether a new coach for Orlando Pirates is going to revive their fortunes.
The Buccaneers did well last season to get to the African Confederation Cup final, but faltered in the final weeks and ended sixth when they should have been runners-up.
New Pirates coach Jose Riveiro is a stab in the dark from club owner Irvin Khoza, as were some of his previous foreign appointments like Vladimir Vermezovic, Kjell Jonevret and Joe Zinnbauer.
Chiefs have also taken a massive gamble on Arthur Zwane in a decision likely to end in tears. He might be the consummate club man as Chiefs management like to paint him, but he is untried as a coach. And at this juncture of their struggling existence Chiefs can ill afford to be taking a chance. Instead, they need a strong and proven personality to revive their fortunes.
An away trip to Royal AM in Durban on Saturday could be the start of anther disappointing season.
Pirates should post an opening win against Swallows FC, whose players went on strike last season over unpaid wages and are apparently still owed money. They also started their pre-season later than any of the other teams because of their participation in the promotion-relegation playoffs, which they narrowly won to hold onto their top-flight status.
It certainly is set up for the Buccaneers to begin on winning note, although it should be remembered that Swallows beat them in their first game of last season in the MTN8, after which coach Joe Zinnbauer abruptly left.