Mamelodi Sundowns continued with their winning ways with a vital 5 – 0 home victory against Summefield Dynamos in the Nedbank Cup quarter finals.
Masandawana arguably dominated their KwaZulu-Natal opponents in the evening’s encounter to move to get a spot in the next round of the competition and could have scored even more goals past Dynamos. Downs Co-Coach Manqoba Mngqithi delivered his verdict of the match at Loftus Versfeld after the game.
“We knew that we were playing at a team that is very organized, a formidable side with a very brilliant coach in Clinton Larsen, also a team that has got a lot of ex professional players. The good thing is that we wanted an early goal to make sure that the game takes shape immediately. If they are coming with a low block, they are immediately forced to come out to try and equalize, then the game is open for us and we were fortunate to get those two goals.”
“I think again after those two goals we gave them a little bit of time and space on the ball, [Sandile] Zuke managed to have a lot of time on the ball in the latter stages of the first half which made us to look like we were defending a bit deep. We tried to push but maybe the players could not understand exactly what we were saying at that time because we were unhappy that they were now having diagonal balls possibilities of even getting behind the defense.”
The Brazilians coach showed more satisfaction with the second half performance which produces three more goals for the home team:
“In the second half I think we came with a more resolute mind to try and bury the game, and also press a lot from the top and force a lot of errors even from their center backs which we did. But there were some areas which we were very unhappy about, I think we gave them two or three counter attacks in the first half, one of them if the goalkeeper had a good delivery our rest defense was very bad but we are learning from this.”
“And the players that were playing, most of them do not play regularly so it was also good for them to also get a run and really gain these minutes that are very important in our preparations for all these competitions, because as the competition progresses we will need everyone.”
Bafana Ba Style’s quality was perfectly exemplified by their togetherness and ruthless play as the game progressed. The Tshwane giants recorded their ninth consecutive victory in all competitions thanks to goals from Gaston Sirino, Kermit Erasmus, Lesedi Kapinga and Pavol Safranko. Coach Manqoba reflected on the structure of his team’s performance:
“We have an understanding with the team, we understand that we’ve got quiet a number of matches to be played which I must give credit to the coaches and the players themselves. We are in that mood now where we are comfortable to rotate without any fear that, A; if we are tampering with this thing it might cause problems for us. That is why by now we have played maybe more than 32 players in this campaign which is very positive for us.”
“We also believed in the team that we had, we had a lot of quality, at times people say we are playing fringed players and when you look at these fringed players they are probably National team players almost from start to finish.”
Uruguayan international, Sirino came out guns blazing from the first half all the way into the final whistle of the game. Sirino scored the first goal in the evening before going on to play a role in the three other goals that were scored by his teammates. The 31-year-olf forward was named man of the match after his team thrashed the KwaZulu-Natal ABC Motsepe Champions out of the competition.
“At this stage, a player like Gaston is a new acquisition for us, we are excited even as the technical team because when you look at Gaston we are saying this is one new additional member in the squad because he has not played. He’s fresh and he can still give us a little bit more freshness in the game and help us going forward, and when he performs like this we get excited.” Said Coach Manqoba.
“The same thing with Lebo [Maboe], we have gained another player because he has not been around for the longest of time and when he’s given an opportunity and he performs how he performed, we get excited. It’s like he’s a new acquisition. The same applies with George [Malukeka], when you see a player that has not been playing given an opportunity and then stamping his authority then it says to us maybe we look like a team that has just signed three more players towards the end of the season and that is encouraging.”
Good job Coaches for keeping all those players motivated. Yeah it does feel like we have just sign maboe George n Maluleke it is very exciting