Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter said the pressure will firmly be on Mamelodi Sundowns when the sides meet in the MTN8 on Sunday.
Chiefs were the only team to beat Sundowns in the league last season and did better than them in the CAF Champions League.
Baxter said he’s not losing sleep over Sundowns despite their depth and strength.
Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter said the pressure will be firmly on Mamelodi Sundowns when the sides meet in an MTN8 quarter-final clash in Tshwane on Sunday.
While Sundowns’ record in the league has been outstanding, they’ve been carthorses in the MTN8.
Last season, they were eliminated in the quarter-final stage by losing finalists Bloemfontein Celtic while they were eliminated in the semi-finals in the previous two seasons.
They haven’t won the tournament since 2007 when it had a different sponsor, but they’ve been thoroughbreds in other domestic competitions.
Baxter said Sundowns have built a rod for their own backs with their sustained success.
“The pressure is firmly on Sundowns because of the way they run the club. Paris Saint Germain have Lionel Messi and the only thing that will satisfy them is the Champions League,” Baxter said.
“When you sign as many players as Sundowns has signed, you increase that pressure and the bar is set higher.
“They will have the favourites tag and it’s going to take the rest of us to chase them down and knock them off their perch and bring greater competition to the league.
“They’ve been good enough to make that competition pretty sparse.”
In his first stint as Kaizer Chiefs coach in 2012, Baxter was subjected to a 4-1 whipping by Sundowns, who at the time were coached by Dutch legend Johan Neeskens.
Baxter though ended up being a league winner while Sundowns ended outside of the top eight, but brought in Pitso Mosimane.
Mosimane has moved on to bigger and better things with Egyptian super club Al-Ahly, and while Sundowns remain a formidable adversary, they don’t give Baxter sleepless nights.
“The sleepless nights come from working out how I get the best out of my players, not how I can knock down the Sundowns players,” Baxter said.
“The gap has increased and it’s not because we haven’t signed players, but it has been a few things as to why Chiefs have moved away from that benchmark.
“I hope the rebuilding process that’s going on will help close that gap and eventually knocking them off their perch.