Premier League goes quiet until October
Leemisa Thuseho
THE Vodacom Premier League (VPL) has gone into hibernation until 4 October, surrendering its calendar to an unusually long FIFA international window.
The window runs for 16 days, from 21 September to 6 October, and it exists because FIFA chose to fuse the September and October breaks into a single stretch. Where national teams ordinarily get nine days and two matches, they now get more than a fortnight and as many as four – a windfall for coaches, and a long, empty Saturday or two for everyone else.
Premier League Management Committee (PLMC) vice secretary Thabiso Phethoka confirmed that the domestic game simply stops until the window closes.
“We will not have games until 4 October,” Phethoka told the Sunday Express on Friday. “However, if there are changes to the date of 4 October, that will be communicated.”
For Likuena, the pause is an opportunity rather than an inconvenience. Lesotho open their Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifying campaign against Niger in Accra, Ghana, on 26 September, before the far sterner examination of Morocco three days later at Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein.
They leave behind a league table that has begun to settle into shape after four weekends – though it should be read with some suspicion, because several of its leading names have not played the same number of games.
Lioli go into the break on top, level on 10 points with Bantu but separated by the sort of margin that decides titles in May: a goal difference of +8 against Bantu’s +5. Neither, however, can be entirely comfortable. Matlama sit third on nine points from only three matches, with a +7 difference of their own, and a win in hand would put them clear at the summit. Linare, also on nine but from four outings and with a +4 difference, complete a top four that is tighter than a single point suggests.
Behind them the field thins out quickly. Majantja are fifth on seven points, LCS sixth on six, and then comes a logjam of three sides on five: Manonyane, who have managed it in three matches, followed by Limkokwing and LDF, who have needed four. Lijabatho are the other side of the table’s fine print – 10th on four points, but from just two games, one won and one drawn, which makes them the most difficult team in the league to judge. Lifofane have the same four points from twice as many matches.
The bottom half is already beginning to look ominous. Mzamane and Villa share three points from four apiece, but Mzamane’s -11 goal difference speaks of a defence in genuine distress, while Villa’s -2 hints at fine margins rather than collapse. Members FC have two points, LMPS a solitary one, and Machokha prop up the table on nothing at all, having lost every match they have played.
Six weeks is a long time to sit with that record. When the league returns in October, and the sides with matches in hand begin to catch up, the standings may look rather different to the ones the VPL left behind.