Sundowns Coach confident ahead of Esperance clash - SABC ...
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Mamelodi Sundowns coach Rhulani Mokwena believes his team is more than capable of reversing the first-leg scoreline of their CAF Champions League tie against Tunisian Club, Esperance, and progressing to the final of the competition this season.
Sundowns host the Tunisian giants at the Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on Friday evening after the Brazilians narrowly lost the first-leg semi-final match one-nil in Tunis last Saturday.
Sundowns are determined to reach their first CAF Champions League final in nine seasons. The last time the side reached the final of Africa’s premier club competition was back in 2016 when they were crowned champions.
Since then, Sundowns have lost only once in the group stages and reached the semi-finals on two occasions — including last season.
Their coach, Rhulani Mokwena, says Sundowns should be able to overcome the one-nil deficit against Esperance — especially at home at Loftus Versfeld.
“We understand that it’s only half-time, but a half-time that we go into with a disadvantage but that is exactly what it is it’s a disadvantage and I think more than that and many teams you can even look at the most recent of records you can go to our afl situation when we played against Wydad we lost away from home. with commitment, with enthusiasm, with positivity. We know that we can overturn the result and the good thing about this second leg is that it takes place in front of our people.”
Sundowns keeper Ronwen Williams says the players are more than ready to produce their A-game against Esperance, despite the fixture congestion the club is faced with.
“It’s a big one for the club. Players are looking forward to it. We enjoy playing these games you know it brings the best out in us. As you even saw last week going away to Tunisia and giving the performance that we did away from home speaks volumes about what we are building at the club. So tomorrow we will have that extra energy behind us with the Masandawana fans getting behind us.”
One aspect of their play that will be in the back of their minds this evening will be the fact that Sundowns failed to score in their last three Champions League matches.
They also couldn’t score in their two-legged quarter-final tie against Young Africans of Tanzania and only managed to advance on penalties.
But Williams remains optimistic. “Obviously we draw inspiration from the AFL final where we went away. We lost away from home but in that game, it was a bit different because we had an away goal, you know. So now it’s a bit different. but then again we draw inspiration from the Champions League that we watched now real Madrid/Man City, Barcelona/PSG you know just go out there play the game, win the game. That’s the important thing. There’s two important things for us going to tomorrow it’s not to concede, and I don’t think we concede a lot of goals at home”.
Mokwena says, over the years, they have learnt that Champions League football is a game of small margins.
“I am very proud of the first half performance and now it’s to put a little bit more in the second half performance because even though the performance was relatively good, that was not good enough because clearly, the score reflects that we were not at the end the better team. you look at the number of shots we had seven shots they had seven shots, we had two on target they had two on target.”
This evening’s match kicks off at eight o’clock and it will be broadcast live on SABC 3.
