Sapula, Surprise Downs masters

Just as they did in the early seasons of the Premiership, Mamelodi Sundowns defended their league title in style.

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Johannesburg - Just as they did in the early seasons of the Premiership, Mamelodi Sundowns defended their league title in style, the Brazilians winning the championship by a massive 10 points ahead of surprise package Silver Stars.

Their success, though, shouldn’t have surprised anyone as Patrice Motsepe had lured that serial champion coach Gordon Igesund.

With Godfrey Sapula defying age and playing like a man possessed, Surprise Moriri in the scoring form he was in in the previous season and Igesund shrewd in planning his approach to the championship race, Sundowns won the league at a canter.

Behind them were Stars, who had a splendid season with former Sundowns striker Simba Marumo leading their charge, Owen da Gama’s team also added the Telkom Knockout title, the newly introduced League Cup, to their lofty second-place finish by hammering Ajax Cape Town 3-0 in the final, Marumo scoring a hat-trick at a sparsely populated Super Stadium in Atteridgeville.

While they were humiliated in the Telkom final, Muhsin Ertugral’s “chickens” returned with a vengeance to capture the Absa Cup title by beating league champions Sundowns 2-0 in the final.

National Under-23 midfielder Clifford Ngobeni had a splendid season and duly awarded the Young Player of the Year gong.

The award that had tongues wagging, though, was that of the golden boot.

Jomo Cosmos’s Zambian striker Christopher Katongo scored 15 goals by the halfway mark of the season, only to leave for Brondy in Denmark.

Yet such was the profligacy of the rest of the league’s strikers that Katongo still finished as the top scorer.

In the promotional play-offs, the Premiership’s 15th-placed side AmaZulu overcame all of Pretoria University, Winners Park and FC AK to hold on to their elite league status.

Saturday Star