Monday, 13th August 2007 at 5:17 pm

Sundowns set to clean up again

Another season upon us - the last one barely finished - and already Sundowns are looking set to terrorise the rest of the league. Patrice Motsepe’s hobby have a couple of titles in the bag already over the last two years, and while a stroke of administrative genius ruled them out of the Telkom Charity Knock-out (the PSL scheduling the one-day tournament on exactly the same day as Sundowns’ first away game in the African Champions League), everything else looks well within reach…

…starting with the SAA Supa8, which got underway over the weekend. Jomo Cosmos needed penalties to get past Platinum Stars; no such trouble for Sundowns, who cruised past Bloemfontein Celtic in the quarterfinals, a particularly welcome result for Gordon Igesund, who had the occasional scare from Celtic and Ajax Cape Town last season.

So who’s out to stop Sundowns? Both Chiefs and Pirates have been changing players, training furiously, and talking very big games, but Spurs didn’t have much trouble in the pre-season Vodacom Challenge, and both the big Soweto sides have a lot of work to do, Chiefs in particular coming off a dismal season. SuperSport have lost Pitso Mosimane to the national cause, Ajax have a new coach, and both Stars and Swallows will need to punch above their weight. Feverpitcher’s prediction for the coming season? More smiles for Patrice Motsepe…