SAZI HADEBE | Will the sun go down on Baxter’s troops or will its chiefs rise up?

It is too early in the 2021-22 DStv Premiership campaign to fathom where the title could be headed, but one significant fixture this weekend may give us a clue.

Mamelodi Sundowns, a club who have won the SA league title four times in a row, on Sunday host Kaizer Chiefs, a bitter rival who last won the championship in May 2015. 

The pain of seeing Sundowns stealing the league title on the last day of the season in the 2019-20 season is still fresh in the minds of Chiefs fans and they’ll want more from their team than that memory erased.

The league title is never determined by one big result and the Sunday tie won’t do that. But what this match could do is tell us more about the strength of each team and how their technical benches want them to perform.

The result of the match will go a long way in making the winner believe they might as well go all the way and win the title. And I can say that with some degree of authority because it is these two sides that everyone views as title favourites. 

For the losers, there’ll be plenty of psychological effects, while a draw, which is always possible in these blockbuster fixtures, will leave both sides with unanswered questions.

But given how long Chiefs have struggled to win their fifth Premier Soccer League (PSL), while Sundowns are gunning for their 12th league crown in the PSL, it’s easy to know who’ll feel most hurt and hopeless if they lose at the weekend.

Stuart Baxter, the last coach to win a league title at Chiefs, has returned to Naturena and will be keen to use this match to show everyone the progress he’s making with a team which was just lucky to finish eighth last season. 

Chiefs management has done its best to give Baxter a decent squad after the end of their one-year ban on signing new players. With close to 10 new players at his disposal, Baxter has, however, been reluctant to throw every recruit into his starting line-ups.

Baxter will be looking for a win on Sunday, but a draw will be no train smash for him. Getting a point against the champions will buy him more time and authority to phase in the new players on his own terms and at his own pace.

But Baxter knows some of the newbies from elsewhere, such as Sifiso Hlanti, Keagan Dolly and Cole Alexander, who have featured significantly in Chiefs’ last three competitive matches of the new season.

Kgaogelo Sekgota and Phathutshedzo Nange are among Chiefs’ completely new recruits who Baxter has included in some of his starting XI, making it just five new players who have so far had a decent run at Chiefs. 

Can we expect Baxter to try more new players against the well-oiled machine that is Sundowns on Sunday? I doubt it. 

Baxter will be looking for a win on Sunday, but a draw will be no train smash for him. Getting a point against the champions will buy him more time and authority to phase in the new players on his own terms and at his own pace.

Chiefs supporters will do well not hold their breath regarding big changes in Baxter’s team. The Briton has proved time and again how much he values experience over experiment.

He is not like Hugo Broos, who surprised all and sundry with what he’s doing with Bafana Bafana in a very short space of time as coach of the senior national team.

Yet Baxter’s reluctance to change his tried and tested team may play into the hands of the Sundowns bench that knows those old Chiefs players. 

Unlike Baxter, Sundowns’ co-coaches Rhulani Mokwena and Manqoba Mngqithi have no headaches when it comes to choosing who to deploy on the field. These coaches have such riches at their disposal that they have no difficulty making five significant changes in each and every game, and getting the desired results.

Already three new players, Pavol Safranko, Neo Maema and Thabiso Kutumela, are showing signs of being good additions to what was already a strong Sundowns side by the end of last season. 

While it might be easy for the Sundowns technical team to figure out which team the Chiefs coach might play, that task will be a lot more difficult for Baxter. He’s up against three coaches, if we add Sundowns senior coach Steve Komphela, who are all capable of devising a plan to frustrate him.

But as I said, it is early days. Sunday’s result, however, will still go a long way in telling us how the campaign might pan out.

And it may well be Baxter’s troops who hold the keys for Sundowns’ charge towards their fifth successive league title.

It’s game on.