What are going to be the storylines in the 2024-25 Premier Soccer League season? Asks Nick Said.
The new Premier Soccer League season is again upon us this month with the usual cast of characters bidding for success. The big question will be whether there is a credible candidate to challenge the all-conquering Mamelodi Sundowns, whose dominance of the domestic scene is now overwhelming.
Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates are always seen as the biggest challengers but in recent seasons both AmaZulu and Cape Town City have emerged as surprised runners-up.
Will there be another unexpected club rising to prominence? Or will it be business as usual? What can be expected from the 2024/25 season? This is what you need to know about the upcoming campaign:
SUNDOWNS’ MISSING SECOND STAR
For several seasons now, Sundowns’ coaches have made it clear their top priority is winning the African Champions League.
This is always a bold target set at the beginning of the campaign, and one which they have not been able to achieve.
Despite all their resources, the South African champions have consistently faltered in their bid for continental glory since they won their first, and only, Champions League title in 2016.
They have come tantalisingly close but not reached the final since, which by their lofty standards must go down as failure.
It seems ludicrous to label them such after their record-breaking achievements domestically but that is the standard they have set for themselves.
CLUB WORLD CUP
Sundowns will be one of four African representatives at the expanded Club World Cup in the United States next June. The event is now a month-long affair with 32 teams. There is much opposition to the event from European clubs and players’ associations, who say it is one tournament too many in an already crowded calendar.
But world football’s governing body FIFA are always likely to win these muscle-flexing exercises.
Sundowns will know in the next months who their group opponents will be, and where they will play, and will surely hope for the opportunity to go up against the likes of Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, Manchester City and Real Madrid, who have qualified from Europe, or the Rio de Janeiro giants Flamengo and Fluminense or River Plate from Argentina.
MORE CONTINENTAL GLORY?
Stellenbosch put together a spectacular last campaign, highlighted by a first trophy success when they won the Carling Knockout and followed it with a 25-match unbeaten run. They faltered at the end of the campaign, however, and lost out on second place in the standings.
But a club-high third spot was still more than expected and qualified them for the African Confederation Cup.
Participating in the continental club competition will stretch their resources and likely impact on their domestic form.
But, in the long run, the experience could prove invaluable by strengthening the profile of the club, their competitiveness and the quality of the players. It will also give exposure to many of the young talents waiting in the wings.
KAIZER CHIEFS’ DROUGHT
It was at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, after beating Chippa United in their last game of the 2014-15 league season, that Chiefs last lifted a trophy.
Nine seasons have since passed without any more silverware in a prolonged drought like no other in the long, and illustrious, history of the club. It is now reaching crisis point for the club, who have bought and hired poorly.
Many of the players who have come into the country over the past decade have been of mediocre quality, certainly nothing like the standard of purchases in decades past, although some of that has to do with the fact Chiefs cannot compete with Sundowns’ financial muscle.
They used to get the cream of the crop, now they are no longer able to eat the first-grade fruit. Owner Kaizer Motaung always preferred a foreign coach, with an air of gravitas, for his club but his children, who now run the show, have a different agenda, pushing locals and the theory only home-based coaches can get Chiefs to play attractive soccer.
None of those coaches have come close to getting them to play anything resembling entertaining, never mind winning, football.
PLAYER MOVEMENT
The transfer window only closes at the end of the month. The period June through August is always the busiest, for obvious reasons, as clubs look to strengthen their squad, prune the dead wood, and give themselves the best chance for the new campaign.
It has been a long time since there has been a decent exodus of top South African talent overseas.
Local clubs now demand too much money which puts the brakes on moves to Europe for the likes of Teboho Mokoena and Relebohile Mofokeng. It has almost become that if you want to make it in Europe, you need to bypass the Premier Soccer League.
NEW BOYS
Clinton Larsen will be no stranger to the top flight but most of his Magesi boys will. Last season’s Motsepe Foundation Championship winners have never played at the highest level of the professional game – not that it is much of an impediment.
Polokwane City and Richards Bay in the last two seasons brought up an untried and untested side and they finished comfortably ahead of the relegation zone.
Polokwane City, in fact, were eighth last season on their return to the big league. Magesi are from Limpopo Province, too, and originally started out as Tambo FC in 2011 in the village of Moletsi, not far from Polokwane.
They are hoping to use the refurbished Seshego Stadium for their home games but that will likely only happen in the second half of the season.
