Mamelodi Sundowns come in as the reigning Absa Premiership champions while Bidvest Wits were second-place finishers last term, and the two have justifiably found their way towards becoming the last two teams still standing in this competition, which has the top-eight finishers from the previous season as contestants.
Though Sundowns won both their games against Wits last season in the league as they went on to win the title with 71 points (16-team league record) – a massive 14 points ahead of The Clever Boys, that is no guarantee that they will have it easy in this one.
The only other time that the Top 8 final has had number one and two from the previous campaign playing in the final the next season was back in 1992.
That year the BP Top 8 final had Kaizer Chiefs – who had finished as champions in the old school full calendar year season in 1991 up against runners-up Sundowns – in the final that Amakhosi won 1-0.
Number one versus number two in the final has then never happened since then until this year when The Brazilians found their way past SuperSport United and Chippa United to reach the final, while Wits got the better of Orlando Pirates and Cape Town City to get to the stage that guarantees medals.
The previous year’s league winners have eventually gone on to be in the final of the Top 8 eight times – excluding this year – with a balance of four to four for the defending league champions and whoever else they would have gone to meet in the final.
League champions in 1991, Chiefs went on to win the Top 8 the next year against Sundowns, Santos won the league in 2001-02 and then the Top 8 the next season just like Sundowns (league winners in 2006-07 and Top 8 winners the next season) and Pirates (league winners in 2010-11 and Top 8 winners the next season).
The league champions that came unstuck in the Top 8 final the next season, include Grinaker Rangers (1986 league winners), Sundowns (1993 league winners), Chiefs (2003-04 league winners) with Amakhosi again going up the podium first last year to receive runners-up medals after having won the championship the previous season.
With today’s final carrying the tag of being a rare number one versus two from the previous season billing, the big question is on what kind of a match it will then turn out to be.
All that the fans want today in this 17h00 kick-off tie at Mbombela Stadium today are goals, plenty of them!