Kaizer Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter has praised Mamelodi Sundowns for ‘setting the benchmark’ but has also signalled his intention to eventually knock Masandawana off their perch.
Sundowns have won the league four seasons in a row, while Chiefs are still on a six-year trophy drought.
And Baxter admits the challenge in front of the Amakhosi has become even more daunting due to the amount of quality new signings made by the Brazilians.
“Sundowns have set the benchmark, and I don’t totally agree when everyone says they’ve signed all the best players,” the former Bafana Bafana coach said.
“You’ve still got to go out and make a team. That doesn’t entitle anyone to win championships.
“To keep winning championships is an impressive performance by everybody at Sundowns, and I’m sure that they’re proud of it.
“The sleepless nights that I may have is about working out how I can get the best out of my players and not how I can knock down the Sundowns players.
“I think the gap has increased, but again, it’s not because we couldn’t sign players, but there’s been a few reasons why gradually Chiefs have been away from that benchmark.
“I hope that the rebuilding process will lead to closing that gap [to Sundowns] and eventually knocking them off their perch. I’m sure that there are a few teams in that chasing pack that would like to do that.
“The pressure is firmly on Sundowns in the way they run the club. I mean Paris Saint-Germain have just signed Leo Messi. Now the only thing that will satisfy everybody will be a Champions League trophy.
“When you have signed as many players as Sundowns have signed, it increases that pressure in that the bar is set higher. So they will have the favourite stamp, and it’s up to the rest of us to chase them down and knock them off that perch.
“To make sure that there’s some sort of greater competition into the league because they’ve been good in making that competition pretty sparse.”