Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rulani Mokwena is banking on his side's experience to help them win their mouth-watering DStv Premiership match against Kaizer Chiefs at Loftus Versfeld Stadium tomorrow at 3pm.
Mokwena admitted that Chiefs' high tempo and aggressive press approach may be difficult to contain, but that their experience in this kind of match may see them through.
Amakhosi, under coach Arthur Zwane, seems to have improved and they have already warned that they will approach the match against the Brazilians with a high tempo tomorrow.
“They have an extremely good squad and a squad that is able to play the game that they speak about, the high octane aggressive pressing and you saw the goals against Maritzburg United [on Tuesday],” Mokwena explained to the media yesterday at the club headquarters in Chloorkop.
“If Yusuf Maart doesn’t jump from the midfield and go and be persistent with the press, then maybe there is no mistake and there is no possibility of Keagan Dolly to score.
“But the same happened with the same goal, you look how aggressive the midfield line wasn’t joining the front three. But you need the right profile of players to be able to do that.
“So the vision, the recruitment, the playing methodology and style is good to see it’s aligned and we know it will be a difficult game for us on Saturday. But we love difficult games and we have the necessary experience to be able to deal with difficult matches.”
Sundowns head into the match at the back of a shock 0-1 defeat to TS Galaxy on Wednesday, while the Soweto Giants thumped Maritzburg United 3-0 at home.
And when asked if he agrees with the notion that Sundowns will go into the match as underdogs after that defeat, Mokwena laughed off and said they welcome the idea.
“We welcome the tag because that won’t play on the pitch. We don’t have rights at the moment. It is okay. We lost the match and Chiefs won the previous match,” Mokwena said.
“So it is okay, we will humbly take it and we will approach this game with utmost humility and accept that we are the underdogs for this one. That gives us no pressure also, which is good. It’s going to be quite interesting, but I think the fixture itself always presents that type of spectacle.”
Fixtures
Tonight: Maritzburg v Swallows, Harry Gwala, 7.30pm
Tomorrow: Sundowns v Chiefs, Loftus, 3pm; Gallants v Arrows, Peter Mokaba, 3pm; Stellenbosch v Royal, Danie Craven, 3pm; Richards Bay v Sekhukhune, King Goodwill Zwelithini, 5.30pm; AmaZulu v CPT City, Moses Mabhida, 7pm
Sunday: Pirates v Chippa, Orlando, 3pm; Galaxy v SuperSport, Mbombela Stadium, 5.30pm.
