Thohoyandou Stadium will be the best place to be on Saturday afternoon. The much-awaited Motsepe Foundation Championship League match between Venda Football Academy (VFA) and Baroka FC will be played there.
VFA must win the match at all costs for two reasons. Winning the match will help the team to restore their lost pride and to revive their league title hopes.
The Thohoyandou side started their league programme on a sad note. Thus far they could only manage to win one of the four matches they had played. VFA were beaten 0-1 by Magesi FC in their opening league fixture and lost 0-1 and 0-2 to Polokwane City and Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila (TTM) respectively. Their only victory was against Platinum City Rovers, whom they had narrowly beaten 1-0 at the Thohoyandou Stadium.
The team's caretaker coach, Mr Kabelo Sibiya, will be giving instructions to the players from the technical bench for the first time on Saturday. This follows the departure of the team's head coach, Mr Michael Loftman, last week.
VFA's captain, Ricardo Versuur, will watch the game from the grandstand. He is still under suspension after he saw red in their game against Polokwane City at the Old Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane three weeks ago. The likes of Thabiso Mokenkoane, Tatenda Tavengwa and Lerato Mofokeng will be expected to do the job in the absence of Versuur.
Black Leopards will undertake a journey to Kwa Mhlanga in Mpumalanga. Their match against Casric Stars will be played at the Solomon Mahlangu Stadium. The other Motsepe Foundation Championship fixtures are Polokwane City vs Hungry Lions, Pretoria Callies vs MM Platinum FC, JDR Stars vs University of Pretoria and Cape Town All Stars vs Uthongathi FC.