Bidvest Wits will meet Bloemfontein Celtic Saturday in a Telkom Knockout (TKO) final in South Africa, with four Malawians expected to be involved in both camps.<\/p>\n
Apart from Malawian Team Manager-cum assistant Coach, John Maduka, Celtic also have striker Atusaye Nyondo whereas Wits have Gerald Phiri Junior and Gabadinho Mhango.<\/p>\n
Mhango is expected to play after serving his six-match ban for spitting at AmaZulu midfielder Michael Morton.<\/p>\n
Wits have a unique record in the TKO as their title triumphs in the tournament came against Soweto giants Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates in 1985 (2-1) and 1995 (1-0) respectively.<\/p>\n
But wait\u201a that is not the end of it.<\/p>\n
The Clever Boys’ two defeats in the finals of this competition were also against Chiefs (2-1) in 1983 and Pirates (3-1) in 2011.<\/p>\n
This piece of history plus the fact that Wits count the Mainstay Cup (1978)\u201a BP Top 8 (1984\u201a 1995)\u201a Nedbank Cup (2010)\u201a MTN 8 (2016) and the league title in 2017 among the honours they have had in their 96-year history makes them favourites in today\u2019s TKO final against Bloemfontein Celtic.<\/p>\n
But for Celtic\u2019s stalwart Maduka\u201a winning the TKO would be huge motivator for the players after their promising start to the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the players and the supporters\u201a who I\u2019m sure will travel with us in their numbers\u201a winning this cup will be huge\u201a\u201d Maduka said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know our cup history is way behind when you compare it to Wits\u201a but on the day that won\u2019t be important.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat will be critical is for our players to enjoy themselves while producing the result that will make all those associated with Celtic happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celtic\u201a who will play Wits at Princess Magogo Stadium in KwaMashu\u201a have the Mainstay Cup (1985)\u201a SAA Supa 8 (2005) and TKO (2012) as the only major trophies they have amassed in their history.<\/p>\n
Playing against a Wits side that lost against Orlando Pirates at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban in 2011\u2014a year before they beat Mamelodi Sundowns 1-0 at the same venue – should encourage Phunya Sele Sele [Celtic] to add a second TKO trophy in their cabinet.<\/p>\n
Nigerian striker Benson Otiti\u2019s 44th minute solitary goal gave Wits their last winner\u2019s cheque in the TKO while playing against Pirates in 1995\u201a while Celtic won it in 2012 via a controversial Joel Mogolosi\u2019s header.\u2014Sowetan newspaper, SA <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bidvest Wits will meet Bloemfontein Celtic Saturday in a Telkom Knockout (TKO) final in South Africa, with four Malawians expected to be involved in both camps. Apart from Malawian Team Manager-cum assistant Coach, John Maduka, Celtic also have striker Atusaye Nyondo whereas Wits have Gerald Phiri Junior and Gabadinho Mhango. Mhango is expected to play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57059,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57056\/revisions\/57059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}