The former Bafana Bafana skipper is still yet to lift any trophy just two months before the end of his three-year contract at Chiefs and has the Nedbank Cup standing as the consolation prize of his tenure at Naturena.
His former employers Free State Stars will be the hurdle that he needs to scale in the semi-finals on Saturday evening to book a place in the decider – being played in Cape Town this year.
Yet what remains a fact is that his ninth attempt to win a trophy in domestic knockout competitions will have stretched to 24 games when he sits on the bench at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday.
Komphela has overseen Chiefs’ longest wait for silverware in the club’s history having not delivered anything since taking over in June 2015.
The best that the 50-year-old has managed in cup games has been reaching the MTN8 and Telkom Knockout finals – both of which were in his first season and both of which he lost to Ajax Cape Town and Mamelodi Sundowns respectively.
His Nedbank Cup record reads: first round exit in his first year while last term Amakhosi came unstuck in the quarter-finals.
Reaching the semi-final this season means this is the best that Komphela has offered in this competition to date.
In the MTN8 the eloquently spoken gaffer has been booted out in the first round in the last two editions.
Since reaching the final of the Telkom in his first season Komphela has then faced the agony of quarter-final and last-four exits in the last two years.
So to date 23 cup games played have brought nothing.
If Komphela guides Chiefs to the Nedbank Cup final this year and then eventually wins it against either Mamelodi Sundowns/Maritzburg United it will have taken him 25 cup games to land a trophy, stretching over three years.