Cavin Johnson will lead Kaizer Chiefs against Mamelodi Sundowns on Thursday evening faced with having to do what the three coaches before him at the club couldn’t do.
Chiefs have a date with the champions in waiting at FNB Stadium (19h30) in a match that will have Sundowns confirmed as league winners for the seventh consecutive season if they win.
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As it stands, Chiefs are without a win in their last eight games against the Chloorkop-based club and this is a line of results that Johnson needs to find a way of breaking.
Gavin Hunt was the last Amakhosi coach to record a win against The Brazilians when he won 2-1 in April 2021, which was just a month before he was sacked.
Since then, Stuart Baxter, Arthur Zwane and Molefi Ntseki all failed to come out with a win in their matches against Sundowns.
Baxter’s first test was in the 2021 MTN8 quarterfinals, with Chiefs losing out on penalties after a 2-2 draw.
A month later, it was a 2-0 league defeat.
By the time the reverse fixture was played in May 2022, Baxter had been shown the door, with Zwane in charge of the 1-1 stalemate that was played at FNB Stadium.
The next match was a 4-0 humiliation in what was Zwane’s third match in charge post his confirmation as the substantive head coach.
Then in January 2023, Sundowns took all three points at FNB in a 1-0 win.
At the beginning of the current season, Ntseki then travelled to Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium in what was his second game in charge and suffered a 2-1 defeat.
The two rivals then met in the two-legged MTN8 semi-finals, with the first leg ending in a 1-1 draw.
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As was expected, The Brazilians then won 2-1 at home courtesy of Peter Shalulile’s brace, bringing to eight the number of games that Chiefs have played against Sundowns without winning.
While Sundowns will need the points to wrap up the title, Chiefs have had to settle for the little achievement of aiming to avoid finishing outside the Top Eight.
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