Year-end review: Club football in South Africa

Cape Town City and struggling neighbours Cape Town Spurs brought down the curtain on 2023 with the final DStv Premiership match of the year on New Year’s Eve, concluding 12 months in which Mamelodi Sundowns continued their dominance of the domestic game.

Sundowns won the league for a sixth successive season, stretching their record number of titles to 16 and finished the year having played an incredible 60 matches in all competitions.

They won the inaugural super league, called the African Football League, although the competition was nothing like originally promised and turned rather into a month-long knockout event, setting Sundowns behind on their other commitments.

Not that it mattered much as they won their opening 11 games of the 2023-24 DStv Premiership season to again sprint into the lead in the race for the title, and were six points clear at the end of the year.

Sundowns did not lose a single league game in the calendar year, with the decision to appoint Rulani Mokwena as solo new coach bearing almost immediate fruit.

The club also made some strategic signings with the likes of Bathusi Aubaas (TS Galaxy), Thapelo Maseko (SuperSport United), Junior Mendieta (Stellenbosch) and Lesiba Nku from Marumo Gallants strengthening an already star-studded squad, but no better was their financial muscle exemplified than with the signing of Brazilian Lucas Ribeiro from the Belgian league.

For years now, the likes of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates have been unable to keep up in the transfer market although both were again active as they sought to halt Sundowns’ supremacy.

Pirates ended last season with success in the Nedbank Cup, with a 2-1 victory in the final over Sekhukhune United where Zimbabwe international Terrence Dzvukamanja snatched the winner in stoppage time after they had been awarded a controversial penalty earlier in the game.

Pirates also held onto their MTN8 title, edging Sundowns on post-match penalties in the final at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium.

It was no classic final but victory in the Carling Knockout in December for Stellenbosch ensured a first piece of silverware for a club who are showing what can be done on a medium sized budget with community involvement and a good academy programme. Plus, most importantly, consistency in the coaching department where Steve Barker has been in the job for some eight years.

They edged TS Galaxy in a penalty shootout in the final in Durban and finished the year with a drastically changed profile.

They were in 15th place in DStv Premiership last January when they came back from two goals to beat Cape Town City 3-2, never looking back after that success and collecting 51 league points in the calendar year.

Having outshone Egyptian giants Al Ahly in the group phase and then hammering Chabab Belouizdad of Algeria in the quarterfinals, Sundowns were hot favourites for the 2023 Champions League, but needed to get past their old nemesis Wydad Casablanca in the semifinals. They forced a goalless draw away in Morocco in the first leg and needed only one goal at home to advance to final but Wydad twice came from behind to force a 2-2 stalemate in the second leg in Pretoria and go instead to the final on the away goals rule in a major disappointment for the Brazilians.

But Sundowns are back in the group phase of the competition for a ninth successive season, flying the flag again for South Africa and can qualify for the last eight if they win their next game in February.

But for Pirates there was the embarrassment of losing to a club from Botswana and failing to reach the group stage. On paper it looked a routine assignment, even after Pirates had lost away in the first leg against Jwaneng Galaxy in the second round of the African Champions League. But the Buccaneers made heavy work of reducing a 0-1 deficit and took 66 minutes in the second leg before Evidence Makgopa scored at the Orlando Stadium to level the aggregate score. Pirates need one more in the last 20 minutes to go through but could not complete the job and then lost on penalties for an early exit. They were the only one of the four South African representatives in this season’s continental club competition not to go through to the group phase.

Marumo Gallants reached the Africa Confederation Cup semifinal in a mazy run but then ran out of cash and steam and finished in bottom spot.

Chiefs’ experiment with Arthur Zwane as coach was ditched after they finished in fifth place at the end of the 2022-23 season and appointed former Bafana Bafana coach Mofei Ntseki instead. But he lasted only 13 matches before also being fired.

In 2023, there were coaching changes at AmaZulu, Chippa United, Moroka Swallows, Richards basy and Sekhukhune United. Polokwane City won promotion along with Cape Town Spurs, whose had a nightmare return to the top flight and lost the first eight games in a row, precipitating the sacking of Shaun Bartlett.