With a place in the Nedbank Cup semifinal and also still chasing the runners-up berth in the DStv Premiership, Kaizer Chiefs are on course for a place in African club competition next season.
While they are strategically well-placed, there is still work to do. Chiefs will need to win the cup or finish in the top three in the DStv Premiership to compete in either the 2023/24 African Champions League or African Confederation Cup.
The club were the country’s first representative in the African Champions Cup, as it was then known, and went on to win the African Cup Winners’ Cup in 2000.
But since then AmaKhosi have laboured their way through infrequent participation in continental club competition, twice banned for two years when they refused to compete and then later easily eliminated as they showed an indifferent approach.
But two season ago, when the club were in the middle of a Fifa transfer ban and unable to refresh their playing stock, they surprised all and sundry by reaching the Champions League final … while only finishing eighth in the DStv Premiership.
It has reignited a determination at the club to return to playing in the African competitions, something coach Arthur Zwane has spoken about several times this season.
But can the youthful coach in his first season, book his club a place in either the Champions League or Confederation Cup? He has a tough programme over the next weeks to try and get there and followed in the footsteps of the other seven Chiefs coaches, who have guaranteed the club an African adventure.
1993: Chiefs were the first South African participants in the then Champions Cup, having won the league in 1992 under Jeff Butler. But he had left by the time they debuted against Lobatse Gunners of Botswana with Sergio dos Santos in charge.
2000: Chiefs finished second to Mamelodi Sundowns in the 1998-99 season under Paul Dolezar and therefore qualified for the Caf Cup in 2000, by which time Muhsin Ertugral had arrived at the club. It was their first and only appearance in the now-discontinued competition and saw them lose to Nchanga Rangers of Zambia in the second round.
2001: Ertugral led Chiefs to BoB Save Super Bowl success in June 2000 in his first season at the club and into the 2001 edition of the African Cup Winners’ Cup, where the club went on to win the trophy named after Nelson Mandela. They had a heady ride to success, sometimes with only 13 players available, beating Angola’s InterClube over two legs in the final.
2002: Ertugral’s Chiefs were back to defend their Cup Winners’ Cup title but after winning 4-0 at home in their first round, first leg tie against US Transport, they were scared to travel to Madagascar for the return match as it was in the grip of civil strife. Chiefs asked Caf for a postponement or to move the match to a neutral venue but African football’s governing body refused and AmaKhosi got kicked out when they did not pitch for the second leg.
2005: League winners in 2004 under Ted Dumitru, Chiefs beat opposition from Mauritius and Madagascar before meeting Esperance of Tunisia in the last preliminary round before the group stage of the Champions League. But Chiefs were on the receiving end of some horror refereeing decisions and went down 4-0 away in Tunis in the first leg from which they never recovered. They then dropped down to the Confederation Cup but refused to take part and were suspended for two years.
2014: After Stuart Baxter took Chiefs to the league title, they returned to the Champions League for the first time in almost a decade but lost in the third round to Vita Club of the Democratic Republic of Congo. They were 3-0 down after an error-ridden first leg and fell narrowly shy of overturning the deficit with a 2-0 home win in the return tie. They dropped down to the Confederation Cup where they were immediately eliminated after losing home and away to ASEC Abidjan from the Ivory Coast.
2015: Runners-up to Sundowns, Baxter led Chiefs back into the Champions League but they lost both home and away to Raja Casablanca in the second round and went out, undone after conceding early in the first leg in Durban.
2016: Chiefs had won the title back from Sundowns under Baxter again – the last trophy they have won – and returned back to the Champions League for a third successive season, but again fell out in the second round, this time losing to ASEC Abidjan.
2018-19: After finishing third in the 2017-18 season, where Steve Komphela had been coach until a few weeks before the end of the campaign, Chiefs went to play in the Confederation Cup, starting under Giovanni Solinas in the first round against Zanzibar opposition but then seeing Ernst Middendorp take over for success over Elgeco Plus of Madagascar before home and away defeats to Zambia’s Zesco United in the third round.
2020-21: Middendorp was the coach in charge as Chiefs finished second and must be credited with qualifying them for the Champions League again although he oversaw them letting slip a runaway lead and botching up the title race on the last day of the ‘bio-bubble’ season. Gavin Hunt replaced him and saw Chiefs through to the quarterfinals after which he was fired. Baxter came back to help engineer a surprise semifinal victory in Casablanca and was coach for the final which they lost to Al Ahly.