Having seen the “shock therapy” he gave his players work by convincingly beating Kaizer Chiefs, Mamelodi Sundowns’ coach Pitso Mosimane is now urging his players to “fight for their lives” against University of Pretoria tomorrow so that they can hopefully wrap up the Absa Premiership race with two games to spare.
Competing on three fronts - the league, Nedbank Cup and CAF Champions League, and then being eliminated in the last two of those tournaments in a space of a week - gave the impression that Sundowns were wobbly and they might stutter in the final stretch of the league race. Their performance in the goalless draw with Ajax Cape Town had all the hallmarks of chocking. The Urban Warriors strangled them with their pace and energy but couldn’t land a killer blow. In response to a depressing past three matches, Mosimane, pictured, reacted by not making the players watch their game against Ajax for individual and group post-match analysis in preparing for their match against Chiefs like they always do, look at past mistakes and positives to implement in the next match. Instead he played them the first 30 minutes of the Telkom Knockout final against Amakhosi and then the league match against Amakhosi at FNB Stadium. The rest is history, with the Brazilians beating Chiefs to move six points clear at the summit with three games to go.
“I said to them, is this the same team? Are these the same players? Who have we changed to? We needed to get back and play exactly the same way as we did. If we play exactly the same way as we did in those matches, we are bound to get the positive results,” Mosimane said.
The motivation against AmaTuks, whom they face tomorrow night at Tuks Stadium with kick-off at 7.30pm, is to ensure that when the league leaders get to Bidvest Wits in their second last match, they don’t get there needing a result. If Wits doesn’t beat Mpumalanga Black Aces tonight and Sundowns beat AmaTuks, the Brazilians will go to Milpark as league champions. But it won’t be that simple, against an AmaTuks team that has been knocked down to the relegation zone by Jomo Cosmos pushing them to 15th place with their 1-0 win on Sunday. This is one of a few sides that Mosimane goes against on a cautious tip. Even though Sundowns have dominated encounters against them, their wins have been slim with the Brazilians having scored more than one goal only four times in their 11 meetings. Mosimane will be banking on the fact that his players have remembered what a good team they are, after the Vita loss and Nedbank Cup quarter-finals elimination by Pirates. Despite those setbacks Sundowns had maintained a steady pace in the league but decided to up things a notch or two against Amakhosi to remain firmly in control.
“We were always running our race because all the clubs are behind us,” Sundowns defender Wayne Arendse said. “The last two competitions, which is the Champions League and the Nedbank Cup, we got knocked out in one week. Obviously we were disappointed. We told ourselves that there is no way we can just become a bad team overnight. It’s just that we needed to pick ourselves up as a team and get that momentum back. I think we showed against Chiefs that we are on that path (of consistency and showing that we are a good team). Hopefully that carries us to the end of the season.” – The Star