A lot of players are raising their hand to say they are willing and ready to help the team achieve its targets – Coach Manqoba Mngqithi

Mamelodi Sundowns hammered La Passe FC at Loftus Versfeld Stadium to triumph 8-1 in the CAF Champions League and advance to the group stages of the competition. The Brazilians were at their scintillating best as they recorded one of their biggest victories on home ground with a relentless performance from a changed set of players that played in the first leg the previous weekend. Downs Co-Coach Manqoba Mngqithi delivered his verdict of the outcome, showing dissatisfaction with the opening round, he said:

“I was more impressed with the first leg because we played with a lot of intensity from the beginning, but the second leg of the first half was not one of my best. I was not very excited [because] we played a very monotonous game of trying to play the ball behind the defense even when those situations were not available thus we lost a lot of balls and found ourselves having to deal with a transitions and we even conceded a very stupid goal from transition.”

“But the second half improved in leaps and bounds and again we started to show the right mentality, [we] forced them to make a lot of mistakes and even kept the right structure because [in] the first half I also felt that the structure was not proper. We were too anxious to try and find the space behind the defense.”

The Tshwane giants came out even stronger after the break leading by three goals to one and scored five more goals to seal a 15-1 goal aggregate against the visitors. Coach Manqoba compared the two halves and outlined the areas of improvement that resulted in victory for the home team:

“Our counter pressing was also not very good in the first half, even our high press probably only yielded something when we forced them to play long balls and then we won those long balls from Mothobi [Mvala] and Mosa [Lebusa] but generally we were not in top shape in the first half. I think the second half was the performance that one would’ve loved to see from the beginning of the match.”

“It’s not like we did not want to play in the first half, I just think that we were over anxious to replicate or to improve from the score of the first match, because we created a lot of chances but we were too anxious and that made us commit some silly mistakes.”

Masandawana ran riot in the clash, grabbing three goals through Thapelo Morena and Cassius Mailula, who grabbed a brace before half-time. Haashim Domingo, Neo Maema and Gift Motupa who came on as substitutes in the second half also registered their names on the scoresheet to see Bafana Ba Style dominate in the second leg of the second preliminary round of the competition. 

“We must be happy for these boys when they start to score goals, because the reason why we keep them in the team is because we know of the quality that they possess and what they can give us at any given stage. I was happy for Gift to score those goals and also happy for Haashim who’s coming from a very awkward injury that he had. For him to come back and look as sharp as he did for us it’s really encouraging.” Coach Manqoba praised his troops.

“To see [Sphelele] Mkhulise scoring in the previous week and this week having an assist. To see the performance of Gaston [Sirino], [Marcelo] Allende, Aubrey Modiba – everybody is raising his hand. I would not really only want to mention a few and leave the rest because I do believe that a lot of players are raising their hand to say they are willing and ready to help the team achieve its targets.”