Pirates and Sundowns enter home stretch of championship race

The Premier Soccer League has reached the final stretch and attention will be firmly fixed on frontrunners Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns as they go for broke in the championship title race.

The Buccaneers, who have five matches left, and the Brazilians, with seven games to play, are involved in a two-horse race for the title and the stage is set for what is expected to be an enthralling sprint to the finish line over the coming weeks.

The positive factor for both teams is there are no disruptions, because they will not be involved in the Nedbank Cup final at the New Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane on May 2, where Durban City take on TS Galaxy.

Sundowns still have the serious matter of the two-legged Champions League final against AS FAR of Morocco on May 15 and 24, after the conclusion of the domestic programme, on their minds.

The Brazilians (56 points from 23 games) go into the Premiership’s final stretch with little separating them from Pirates (58 from 25), who have a slender two-point lead but have played two matches more than Sundowns.

In such a tight race Bucs, who had dropped points in recent weeks with draws against Siwelele FC (1-1) and Richards Bay (2-2) could not slip up again this past weekend and responded by convincingly brushing aside AmaZulu 3-0 at Orlando Stadium on Saturday.

Discussions among football fans have centred on which of the two leading teams has the advantage that will prove decisive in the coming weeks before the league’s conclusion on May 23, when there is going to be little room for error.

After beating Espérance Tunis 1-0 in Saturday’s semifinal second leg to seal their place with a 2-0 aggregate scoreline in the final of the Champions League, Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso said his focus was on their league match against Stellenbosch FC at Loftus on Tuesday.

The fixture comes at the the start of a busy domestic programme for Downs as they are scheduled to play seven league matches in 18 days to conclude their domestic season before the Champions League final.

“My focus is on Stellenbosch on Wednesday and nothing more,” said Cardoso.

“After the Stellenbosch match it is Richards Bay [on Saturday] and then Polokwane City back to back, [Kaizer] Chiefs and Siwelele FC. That’s what we have to do — seven matches in less than 21 days.

“No one in the world but we will do it.”

Midfielder Bathusi Aubaas said the battle is on with Pirates, but they are taking every game as it comes.

“The guys [Pirates] are pushing us but the most important thing is we have to focus on ourselves by taking every game seriously,” said the Bafana Bafana midfield destroyer."

Pirates’ programme is a fair degree less congested. It continues with the Soweto derby against Kaizer Chiefs at FNB Stadium on Sunday. The derby will be followed by matches against Stellenbosch FC, Magesi FC and Durban City, and they end their campaign with a trip to Orbit College in Rustenburg.

There is interest in the middle of the table from sixth to 13th place, where Durban City (35 points from 25 games), Polokwane City (34 from 24), Golden Arrows (34 from 25), Stellenbosch FC (31 from 24), Richards Bay (30 from 25), Siwele (28 from 24), TS Galaxy (25 from 25) and Chippa United (24 from 25) are separated by 11 points in a congested battle to be in the top eight.

At the bottom, there is another bunfight to avoid automatic relegation between 14th-placed Magesi FC (20 points from 25 games), 15th-placed Marumo Gallants (20 from 25) and last-placed Orbit College (19 from 25).