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New MTN8 season kicks off

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Football players and fans are excited about the imminent start of the new season after the World Cup break.

The new campaign will provide some teams with an opportunity to try and redeem them.

The MTN8, launched on Monday at a packed Johannesburg Park station, will offer both Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs an opportunity to end their trophy drought.

The quarter-finals of the Cup competition, with prize money of eight million rand for the winners, will be played on the weekend of August 11.

The new season will be about redemption for two of the country’s biggest clubs.

Chiefs have gone three seasons without anything to show for it, Pirates last won a Cup competition in 2014.

The two Soweto giants have played second fiddle to the Tshwane teams with Mamelodi Sundowns and SuperSport United winning the most Cup competitions the last three seasons.

Chiefs are eager to win silverware for their bare trophy cabinet, but will first have to beat Free State stars that eliminated them from last season’s Nedbank Cup.

Chiefs defender Ramahlwe Mphahlele says: “We’ve suffered enough and it’s about time that we show as players we want bounce back it’s not going to be easy but we have to fight for each other and the fans.”

Free State Stars tasted success for the first time in many years by winning the Nedbank Cup, but it’s certainly something they can become used to.

SuperSport United have been Pirates’ nemesis in recent seasons, beating them 6-1 in 2016 in the league and 4-1 in the Nedbank Cup last season.

But for the Pirates’ players, the quarter-final match against United is not about revenge, but rather on building on their momentum from last season.

Mamelodi Sundowns will host Golden Arrows in another quarter-final on the Saturday the 11th of August, while Cape Town City will be away to Mariztburg United the following day.

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