The battle lines have been drawn for the Carling Knockout Cup after the Round of 16 teams were revealed at the Carling Knockout Cup launch in Hyde Park, Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon.
The competition, that now replaces the Telkom Knockout, will see the 16 teams in the topflight taking part, with the seeded teams (teams that finished in the top eight last season) being pitted against the unseeded teams (teams that finished in the bottom eight last season. The two relegated sides are replaced by the two promoted sides).
Mamelodi Sundowns, according to the draw, will face the Mpumalanga-based side, TS Galaxy. The Head Coach of Mamelodi Sundowns, Coach Rulani Mokwena expressed his fulfilment of the opponent they were drawn with.
“It would have been difficult with any other opponent, so we take it. TS Galaxy are a very good team, well structured and are a much stronger than last season. They did some incredible work during the transfer period, and they have a very good coach with a very strong technical team. We are looking forward to the game. It’s a cup game and one we have to enjoy once again,” he said.
The tournament will only take place later in October and the dates, venues and prizes will be communicated closer to the start of the tournament.
I am happy were are cleared to play in the AFL, I think PSL teams are now scared of us, let us play the league, CAF champions league and the AFL and leave the rest to these small teams, abo Pirates, Chiefs etc. Ka bo yellow i remain
Jealousy is the cause of all the confusion and frustration by mainly those who are associated with the two old team who claim to be big teams.They are in denial of the fact that Downs is regarded as the big team in SA and counted as one of power houses in Africa by both FIFA and CAF.Motsepe came into football just few years ago but his success in football is more than what both Kaizer and Khoza achieved all of their lives. I’m even surprised to hear kompela saying pirates showed other teams how to beat Downs and even heard some dj on Radio 2000 saying this is the beginning of Downs to lose more games,I then realised that the people who are supposed to educate the public about football are the ones having shallow knowledge about soccer,because according to FIFA book the game is recorded as a draw and penalties are a system to determine who gets a cup or who should proceed to the next level of a tournament.Reveiro after the game said they needed to just be happy and not analyse the game because he knew his team did nothing to win that game and that his has got a very serious problem because they only scored only one deflected goal in their last five games.The one thing I love most about Downs supporters, they’ll grill the team after a win over poor performance, we know our story, we don’t just look at the results but comprehensive performance of the team.