Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi believes that not being involved in CAF inter-club competitions will be an advantage for Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates in the 2022/23 season.
Both Soweto giants failed to qualify for the CAF Champions League and CAF Confederations Cup after finishing outside the top three in the DStv Premiership and failing to win the Nedbank Cup.
The two clubs had relatively successful CAF runs over the last two years, with Chiefs reaching CAF Champions League final in 2021 and the Pirates reaching the CAF Confederations Cup final in 2021/22, but both ended up trophy less.
Manqoba has now discussed Sundowns’ potential title rivals and insisted that Chiefs and Pirates have the advantage of only featuring in domestic competitions..
“The good thing is that they must also fight each other. So maybe the most important thing for us is always to beat the one that can beat the rest because it will mean you will always be ahead of the rest,” he said.
“Chiefs and Pirates are in a much better position when you consider that they don’t have to compete in those competitions. But it might make the season a bit easier for the Chiefs and Pirates.”
Mngqithi also pointed out how competitive the South African league is after Amakhosi and the Buccaneers finishing outside the top three.
“They are number five and number six for a reason,” he added.
“So they have got a lot of work to do to try and fight us. So it is gonna be interesting.
“The season we won the league when Coach Pitso was still around, who helped us it was Baroka, which was somewhere down there in the league.”
