Polokwane City’s scheduled home match against Mamelodi Sundowns was shifted from the Old Peter Mokaba Stadium to Seshego Stadium after the original venue was booked for the COSATU May Day rally, forcing both teams to adapt ahead of a Wednesday night fixture.
The change comes after Mamelodi Sundowns, who played to a 0-0 draw with Richards Bay on Sunday, arrived in Limpopo with clear unease about playing surfaces. Coach Miguel Cardoso said, "Look, we have to think match after match," then added bluntly: "But it seems that we’re going to play somewhere, in some place in the countryside." He admitted: "I don’t know even the name of it."
Cardoso, 53, tempered that admission with praise for the replacement venue: "Yeah, it’s their big stadium, nice for this level of matches." Yet he was also critical of the playing surface Sundowns encountered against Richards Bay, saying, "A slow pitch that’s very dry [made life difficult for them]." He pointed to a regulatory point: "It’s the rules in SA that allow the pitch not to be watered."
Polokwane coach Phuti Mohafe arrived at the fixture buoyed by a recent home result. His side had ended a seven-game winless run at the Old Peter Mokaba Stadium with a 1-0 victory over Stellenbosch FC, and Mohafe said that result had lifted belief: "Yoh! That one is a mountain to climb against Sundowns because we don't know which team we are going to play of Sundowns but it boosted the confidence." He also argued the relocation would not radically alter the contest, noting that "the Seshego ground had the same field dimensions as the Bidvest field" and that "the grandstand being close to the field made Seshego Stadium look small."
Khuliso Mudau, a Sundowns player, sought to dampen any suggestion that the club was distracted by the switch. "We’re taking it one game at a time; we’re not putting ourselves under pressure," he said, underlining the team's short-term focus after the goalless draw on Sunday.
The numbers underline why the venue issue matters: Sundowns arrived off a 0-0 result and as reigning Betway Premiership champions, and Polokwane arrived off the psychological lift of ending a seven-game home run without victory. The timetable tightened the stakes — the booking for a COSATU May Day rally removed the standard home advantage and forced both clubs to prepare for a match at Seshego on Wednesday night.
Context helps explain the bluntness of Cardoso’s remarks. He has publicly complained in the past about pitches in South Africa he considers unfit for PSL matches, and the forced move after a political rally is the latest in a string of disruptions that can alter preparations. Polokwane’s recent 1-0 win at Old Peter Mokaba was the only home positive in seven attempts, so the club will want to preserve momentum even in a different stadium.
The friction in this story is plain. Sundowns’ coach worries about pitch speed and dryness and cites rules that allow a surface to go unwatered; the Polokwane coach points to comparable dimensions and to a compact feel at Seshego that could favour a home side used to tighter conditions. Cardoso’s admission that he did not even know the replacement venue’s name sharpens the disconnect between a champion club used to stable settings and a fixture shuffled by an outside event.
The match is scheduled to go ahead at Seshego Stadium on Wednesday night, and both coaches insist the team that best adapts to an unfamiliar surface will take the initiative. The most consequential question now is straightforward: whether pitch conditions at Seshego will mirror the dryness Cardoso described and, if they do, whether the rules that permit that dryness will shape the result.
