This weekend sees the kick off of this year’s MTN8 competition and there will be a bevy of stars on display in the four quarterfinal ties on Saturday and Sunday.
These are SuperSport.com’s pick of the best for the competition:
Cape Town City: The Cape Town club have not had much luck with strikers imported from outside the country, releasing the hard-running Cameroonian Bertrand Mani after only six months at the end of last season. This campaign, they have turned to Jo Paciencia, an Angolan international who joins from Luanda’s police team InterClube. The 27-year-old, who played for his country against Bafana Bafana last November in friendly at Mbombela Stadium, made an immediate impact last Sunday as he scored just minutes after coming on to see City to a last-gasp 1-0 win over Polokwane City. He is only the fourth Angolan import into the DStv Premiership following Antonio ‘Kito’ Correira (Ajax Cape Town), Jose Perreira (SuperSport United) and Armando Pedro Satchipia, who played at Hellenic and African Wanderers).
Kaizer Chiefs: At the age of 30, Ranga Chivaviro has finally made the career breakthrough he has been searching for. Over the last decade, the striker has bounced around clubs, mainly in the National First Division. He started at Witbank Spurs, then Cape All Stars and Ubuntu Cape Town before he got his chance in the top flight at Baroka FC. But the goals did not come there and instead he went back down again, spending time at both TS Sporting and Venda FC before last season arriving at Marumo Gallants. It took a single campaign to belatedly launch him as he helped Gallants to the semifinal of the African Confederation Cup and scored 10 goals for them in the league, although it did not prove enough to keep them up.
Mamelodi Sundowns: Brazilian Lucas Ribeiro made an immediate splash as he scored on debut to hand his new club the winner in their opening league match of the season. He arrives in South African football without much of a profile, having last played in Belgium. He moved from Sao Paulo club Pinheiros as a 20-year-old to Valenciennes in the French second division but never got any game time and after that moved to Belgium, where Charleroi fielded him in a handful of top flight matches. But he spent most of the last four years out on loan and it would be fair to say he will be hoping his Premier Soccer League adventure is more successful than his European one.
Moroka Swallows: With more than 60 goals in his decade of playing in the PSL, Frank ‘Gabadinho’ Mhango knows his way to goal. But he has proved a mercurial character since he first arrived at Lamontville Golden Arrows, struggling at clubs where he has felt unloved but blossoming where he has been nurtured and valued. A move to Swallows this season, and a chance to work with Steve Komphela has a good chance of turning into a success story, with the man management skills of the coach expected to bring out the best in the Malawian international. Mhango could show the Birds the way in the MTN8 too, where he has previously won with Bidvest Wits in 2017.
Orlando Pirates: Zakhele Lepasa battled with a troublesome ankle for over a season and could then not find his scoring boots, prompting the Buccaneers to loan him out to SuperSport United in January. He started well there initially but then finished the campaign on the bench. The saving grace for the 26-year-old was his performance for South Africa in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Morocco in June, where he scored the decisive goal. That looks to have given him the injection of confidence he needed for the new campaign, including Pirates’ defence of their MTN8 title, and he did enough in the pre-season to convince coach Jose Riveiro to put him into the team, scoring twice on Tuesday as Pirates beat Royal AM 4-2 in their DStv Premiership clash.
Sekhukhune United: Jamie Webber has been handed a new lease of a career that was stagnating at SuperSport United. He had just turned 18 when Stellenbosch, who were then competing in the National First Division, thrust him into the first team and as the club came close to promotion in 2018 he showed enough potential to win a transfer from the Cape up to Gauteng and SuperSport. There were high hopes that Webber was going to be a stalwart for both club and country but although he made more than 100 appearances for SuperSport, including winning the MTN8 in 2019, he was going nowhere fast last season. A move might prove just the tonic for the 25-year-old and an opportunity to be a regular at Sekhukhune will be surely boost his confidence and rekindle his enthusiasm.
Stellenbosch: Coach Steve Barker pulled aside the 21-year-old home grown product Antonio van Wyk in the pre-season and predicted this was going to be the breakthrough campaign for the dreadlocked striker. Van Wyk has moved quickly to prove his coach right, scoring with calmness and precision last Saturday to hand the Winelands club a winning start to their league campaign with the only goal in the home victory over highly fancied Pirates. Van Wyk’s pace and dribbling skills could be a major factor for the club this seasons is what Barker is asserting, as the coach continues to give opportunity to players born and brought up in the local communities.
SuperSport United: Nigerian striker Etiosa Ighadaro belongs to champions Sundowns but is spending a third successive season out on loan, again trying to prove himself. This time he is at SuperSport, where he made an immediate impact with a goal against Richards Bay on the opening weekend of the new DStv Premiership season. Ighadaro perfectly fits the profile of player that coach Gavin Hunt likes upfront, a target man No 9 with aerial ability and nuisance value in the box. Ighadaro also looks a more than capable antidote to veteran Bradley Grobler, who continue to struggle with injury. Ighadaro was previously at the University of Pretoria in the NFD and last season at Chippa United, where he scored 10 goals in 20 starts and was just short of the Golden Boot prize for the league’s top scorer.