Pirates will on Saturday visit Harry Gwala Stadium to face Maritzburg in a crunch Nedbank Cup Last 16 tie, with Zinnbauer and Middendorp set to renew their rivalry.
This will be a third meeting between the two German tacticians, who began their competition on opposite ends of the Soweto Derby back in 2020.
Each have one win under their belt in their previous two meetings – the latest in January, when the Buccaneers beat the Team of Choice 1-0 at Orlando Stadium – making this one all the more exciting as they vie for a head-to-head advantage.
"I think it's special in this game, with the German coaches – they are very disciplined in defence work as well as the offence work," JZ during his pre-match press conference.
"[German coaches] go into games and want a situation that they can get the solution for scoring, and we know this. Ernst knows we come and how we 100 percent have the lead, we dominate the game, he knows this.
"But in every game you have situations where you can score, and these are the moments we have to be careful of; we have to fix these points and we cannot give him a lot of chances.
"We cannot stop all their chances but not give them too much, and the important thing is – like against SuperSport – we have to score and then it's always important to score again.
"If you don't do this then there's always a possibility for set-pieces or mistakes to happen and the other team can score, so it's important for us to look at us and not the opponent."