Mamelodi Sundowns have registered their third league loss of the 2024/25 campaign following a 2-1 defeat against Orlando Pirates on Sunday afternoon at the FNB Stadium in Soweto.
Very early in the opening half, the hosts announced their presence, seeing them scoring two goals inside five minutes. They capitalised from mistakes made by the Downs’s defense at the back, seeing the ball going past Ronwen Williams.
Masandawana looked to react from the early setback as they settled in and they were back to threatening their hosts. Lucas Ribeiro tried to take the ball into the danger zone but was blocked on the edge to go past. Grant Kekana also came close to pulling one back for his side through a header but his effort hit the woodwork to deny him an opportunity to close the gap.
The Soweto-based side tried to extend their lead after the half-hour mark but Williams together with his defense squad blocked the chances. The visitors searched for a goal before the break but couldn’t find any as they went to the interval trailing.
Bafana Ba Style came back into the game more energised and with a fighting spirit. They kept knocking on the door but the Pirates wall pulled a low-block to ensure that no goals go past their goalkeeper.
Eventually, in the 66th minute, Khuliso Mudau through a toe-poke, reduced the gap for his side. The visitors looked lively and hoped to score more goals with the many chances they created. In the end, they couldn’t see any more goals and recorded their third defeat of the season.
How we lined up: Williams ©, Mudau, Kekana, Suarez, Modiba, Mokoena, Allende, Adams, Ribeiro, Rayners, Shalulile.
Subs: Onyango, Khoza, Morena, Lunga, Aubaas, Maema, Letlhaku, Matthews, Sales.
Morning masandawana it hurts to loose like the way we lose on Sunday, we did got chances to equalise but we didn’t finish. even the pitch didn’t allow us to play our normal game. im worried about modiba cause it seems like every game he loose the ball very cheap and he passes are not accurate
Again a game full of ball possession bt with no sense of urgency from our team.But we don’t have the divine right 2 win every game.What demoralized us was having only 5 minutes bt already concided 2 goals that what caused our low moral.Truth b told Modiba jst gives 200%percent 4 the national team &gives this shawdy performance when playing 4 us.Once u select Modiba against Pirates jst all the goals wll b conceded by our team starting from his side.Pirates youngsters r always giving us hard time bcoz they r being thrown 2 the deep end bt ours like Litlhaku&Malibongwe wl b frozen &selected 4 aimless&meaningless games,I feel sorry 4 development players of Sundowns bcoz a foolish manager at Sundowns wll break the bank 4 a foolish signing of Maseko &Johannes.Its like we r being led by blind crazy lunats.Otherwise if Sundowns wins the remaining games no team will overtake us excepting the close the gap brigade who r counting eggs instead of chickens.
I really think the team played bad for only 5 minutes except for Modiba who,i think he was saving himself for Bafana game,after that,i think there was half chance for Rele and other one for Hotto then that was it.I don’t understand why people are making a lot of noise because the goals they scored were gifted especially the 2nd one even they hero Mofokeng played only ten minutes of the 1st half and did not show up until he got replaced.Modiba and Williams are on comfort zone,Williams is falling to do his primary duty of keeping the goals from going int the net and he is more focused on ball playing duty which he failed dismally,he nearly caused us a 3rd goal because of his stupid pass to Mokoena.He failed to stop the ball which was straight to him for Pirates 1st goal,even against Galaxy he lifted his foot up for a ball kicked by Sebelbele to be goal.I salute the coach for switching Mudau to a central defender that worked wonders,i even suggested that last season.We have Mdunyelwa and Tiwani as wing backs,,they both have energy and aggression unlike Modiba who place like his ID or bank card is with loan sharks. All is not lost i can bet my last dollar Pirates will never reach 65 points.
Williams should know that possession football will not win you games,at least now i noticed Kekana is no longer playing stupid back passes,Young Khoza has adopted that useless ball to keeper passes hence they say he made 100 passes in a game if you can check 75% of those passes were back passes to the keeper and 20% were to other defenders can anyone pick out anything good in that.Fast forward football is key,late Sunday night i watched Barca vs Atletico they were playing forward football,Barca were 2-0 down until 71st minute but at the end of the game they were 4-2 up,do you think they would have scored 4 goals in 20 minutes if they were playing that tortoise build Williams is playing at the back? They must check the facts their father Rulani is on the verge of being sucked in Morocco because of possession football at the back,you can’t score winning goals at the back never.
But where’s the technical team in all of that member? We can’t blame the players when the technical team is clearly condoning what they’re doing. They’ve been doing it all along, even in the Champions League, it also badly backfired against Raja Casablanca, but clearly the technical team is not doing anything about it. Our boys are clearly tired, the signs were there against AmaZulu, and I still don’t understand how AmaZulu didn’t punish us. We have close to 40 quality players, and they’re not being utilised. Pirates also didn’t play their normal game, and what was needed was just a fresh team. Pirates refreshed their team a little bit, and it looked like Mbokazi completely silenced Ribeiro when Ribeiro was just tired