Chiefs' decider against Al Ahly on July 17 in Casablanca, where the winner gets approximately R36 million, will be their 49th game of the season – proving just how heavy a campaign they have had.
The only occasion that the club ever played so many games was in the 2001/02 season, when they played 49 matches on their way to winning the CAF Cup Winners' Cup, BP Top Eight and Coca-Cola Cup, before then losing 4-1 to Al Ahly in the CAF Super Cup.
The final in Casablanca will complete Amakhosi's 2020/21 season, yet fall well into the preparations for the 2021/22 season, thus leaving Chiefs in an awkward situation of closing off a campaign while getting ready to start a new one.
Chiefs' domestic campaign was tormenting – they squeezed their way into a top half finish on the final day of the DStv Premiership, but will have little to take pride in from a league campaign largely overseen by Gavin Hunt.
Eight wins from their allotted 30 league games was disappointing, to say the least. Worse was that lower division team Richards Bay humiliated them in the Nedbank Cup with a first round exit, after earlier suffering a 5-0 aggregate drubbing by Orlando Pirates in the MTN8 semi-finals.
In the end, from 34 games, the Soweto giants could only win nine, while losing 13 and a dozen games ending as draws.
Yet the mess that became their PSL season could all be forgotten if they can clinch the biggest prize in African club football on Saturday, which comes with the bonus of a ticket to the FIFA Club World Cup.
When Chiefs reached 49 games in the 2001/02 season, they played 34 league games, three in the BP Top Eight, four in the Coca-Cola Cup and eight on the continent after deciding not to fulfil the return leg of their 2002 Cup Winners Cup first round tie in Madagascar, which subsequently led to a ban from CAF competitions.