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Four teams to compete in this year’s one-day Carling Black Label Cup tournament

  • Amazulu and Sundowns fans posing
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This year’s Carling Black Label Cup tournament could produce a winner other than the two Soweto giants, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.

For the first time since 2011, four teams will be playing in the one-day football tournament. Three matches will be staged on the same day with Mamelodi Sundowns facing Amazulu FC in the first semi-final.

The annual Carling Black Label Cup has proved to be a popular football competition with local football fans.

The competition was staged for nine consecutive years but did not take place during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and in 2021. It was always a sold-out affair between traditional rivals, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.

All four teams that will play in the Carling Black Label Cup were voted in by the fans. The first semi-final will be played at 9H30, and the second semi-final starts at 12H30, with the final taking place at 17H00 o’clock.

Despite their failure to win a trophy for seven years, Kaizer Chiefs have proved to be the most popular club in South Africa after receiving the most number of votes.

Carling Black Label  Brand Director, Arne  Rust says they have received over 2.5 million votes for all the teams.

“It is so simple all you do is give people the power. You say who you want to see as your starting eleven and we’ve seen a huge response. By the time we selected the teams we had 1.4 million votes. As I ‘am here speaking to you now, we’ve had 2.5 million votes for all the teams and starting eleven and we haven’t even started voting for captains or man of the match yet. It will be the first final for Carling Cup where potential non-Chiefs, non-Pirates team will be raising that trophy.”

Chiefs are aiming to use both the MTN-8 and the Carling Black Label Cup to rediscover their old tag of being labelled the cup kings of South African football.

Mamelodi Sundowns’ former captain, Hlompho Kekana says the DSTV Premiership defending champions, will be aiming to wrestle the cup away from the two Soweto clubs.

“I think this is a trophy that Mamelodi Sundowns would like to win and we all know the culture of the team they want to win everything so I believe they are working towards that which is to win the trophy and we all know when Sundowns start winning a match or tournament it gives that the confidence to go for the second one, the third one, and the fourth one”.

Former Amazulu FC defender, Tshepo Masilela says the other three participating teams should not underestimate the KwaZulu-Natal-based side, Amazulu FC.

“No time to relax, no easy games you know weekend it’s the semi-finals one off another opportunity to go play in a cup final and I know as a player these are the games you look forward to, you want to win trophies”.

The two clubs that lose their respective semi-finals will not play a full match in the third and fourth place play-off encounter. The match will be a straight penalty shoot-out.

The second semi-final has pitted bitter rivals, Chiefs and Pirates on the 12th November.

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