Sundowns' Delayed Season Opener Signals Volatility Ahead in South African Soccer

Mamelodi Sundowns will not travel to Marumo Gallants FC this weekend, their opening fixture delayed after the club returned from an Austrian pre-season camp only days ago, a schedule already disrupted by the death of midfielder Jayden Adams. It is an inauspicious start for the defending champions, and it signals the kind of unpredictability that analysts say will define the entire South African Premier Soccer League season.

Fourteen of the league’s sixteen clubs are in action this weekend. The top eight finishers from last season enter the MTN8 cup competition only on the second weekend, a staggered structure that creates uneven momentum across the opening fortnight.

The conventional framing of recent seasons is shifting. For years, the PSL’s opening weekend prompted two questions: could Sundowns be toppled, and could Kaizer Chiefs emerge as genuine contenders? This season those questions have inverted. Sundowns are not defending champions; they lost last year’s title to Orlando Pirates. The focus now is whether they can reclaim it, while Chiefs’ comeback potential remains central to pre-season conversation.

William Shongwe, the former Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper now working as a television analyst, thinks the binary framing no longer holds. “I think talk of a two-horse race again might be wrong,” he told Forbes Africa. “I think there might be more sides battling for honors this season, with Chiefs in the race and maybe one of AmaZulu and Sekhukhune.”

Chiefs have appointed Fernando Da Cruz, a French coach, to lead their campaign. Shongwe views the managerial change as potentially transformative. He singles out AmaZulu as another club capable of unsettling the established order. “They have a good group of players, no real stars, but they are very energetic,” he says.

The weekend’s opening fixtures reflect that competitive spread. Kaizer Chiefs, known by their Zulu name AmaKhosi, begin away on Saturday night at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit against Kruger United, the second-tier champions from the previous season. AmaZulu face Stellenbosch the same evening, placing both clubs immediately against quality opposition.

Meanwhile, a structural change to the calendar adds another variable. There will be no mid-campaign break this season, a scheduling decision that could strain the three clubs competing in African club competitions. Sundowns, Chiefs, and Orlando Pirates all carry the additional burden of continental fixtures alongside domestic league play. Travel demands and difficult conditions in African competition have historically proven energy-sapping for South African sides.

Shongwe dismisses the concern. “I think by now all these teams know how to juggle the pressure of playing in Africa and on the home front. They all have lots of experience in this regard,” he says. “I can’t see it being a factor.”

Whether that confidence proves well-placed will become clearer as the continental schedule intensifies. For now, the league opens with Sundowns absent, Chiefs on the road in Nelspruit, and genuine uncertainty about which club will still be standing at the top when the season closes.