Following a stellar performance against the Amazulu reserves at the weekend in Durban, the Mamelodi Sundowns Diski team will be looking to continue with their winning streak when they play their hosting duties to fifth placed Cape Town City Reserves on Saturday morning.
Bafana Ba Style have been playing the last few games with a few players down and will welcome back those who were on suspension and injury lay-offs. Diski Team’s Coach Themba Badela has expressed how delighted he is to have almost the full squad back in training.
“Preparations have been going well. It’s been a shorter week than the previous week because we played on Sunday and this week we are playing on a Saturday. We have got players back from suspensions and injury lay-offs. We are still missing a few players on injury but it’s getting better,” he stated.
He further stated that his men are looking forward to the fixture and are anticipating a Cape Town City side that will give them a hard time in the field, which has been witnessed before in the first round fixture when the Cape Town side hosted Downs in a festival.
“Cape Town City is a good team that has been doing very well. We are aware of their strengths and their weaknesses. We played them five weeks ago in a festival at Stellenbosch which was a very tough game. They are a good team with good players. They build from the back and have a lot of combinations and short passes in the midfield. They also have the speed and dribble in the final third so we have to be very careful against them, make sure that we are very focused and give them a very hard game,” Coach Themba said.
Masandawana were initially scheduled to play their fixture at the Lucas Moripe Stadium on Saturday but the venue has since changed to the Tuks Stadium. When asked whether the change of venue will affect the performance of his charges, Coach Themba said that his side is able to adapt in any environment. He is confident in the team’s performance ahead of this encounter.
“It is something that is frustrating because we have done very well at Lucas Moripe Stadium. We played most of our games there and we have only drawn one game which was against Stellenbosch FC and we won the rest. We are a team that is starting to understand how the league works and that we can’t make excuses about the pitch, we have to adapt as quickly as possible and we will do the same tomorrow. We are playing at the Tuks Stadium where the pitch is usually good. Yes, we haven’t trained nor played there as a team but I’m sure we will adapt and that’s the mentality that we have now,” he concluded.
The Mamelodi Sundowns Diski Team will clash with the Cape Town City Reserves on Saturday morning at the Tuks Stadium. Kick-off is scheduled for 10H00.
