While Kaizer Chiefs are evidently heading into Saturday’s meeting with Orlando Pirates as the home club and carrying an encouraging line of results in recent matches against other clubs, as well as in this particular fixture, Komphela is resisting the pull of his club being viewed as the ones likely to win.
The Chiefs coach is only hoping that the line of ‘shock waves’ that Pirates have suffered with frequency this season happens again on Saturday afternoon at FNB Stadium, where the match kicks off at 15h30.
“I don’t want us to carry the favourites tag,” reacts Komphela.
“Favourites have a problem because underdogs can kick butt sometimes. So we don’t even want to raise the hopes of our people and say now we are in a position where we are saying it is ours.
“We still have to go through the match on Saturday but when you look at how things have been. We have been in a position where we can dictate and determine our fate but unfortunately in some instances they have gone through some shock waves and for us we hope one of those shock waves comes again on Saturday,” he says.
Could what happened in the MTN8 Final against Ajax Cape Town when Chiefs went in as the favourites to win be the reason why Komphela is taking this stance?
“Not really, we never looked at ourselves as favourites but general when you think you are a favourite you tend to be familiar and familiarity breeds complacency and the minute you are complacent you become mediocre so we don’t want that,” explains Komphela.
AmaKhosi have won three of their last four meetings with Bucs and last went out as losers seven games ago when Daine Klate’s delightful free-kick proved to be the difference in the first leg of the 2013 MTN8 semi-final.