Mamelodi Sundowns suffered a Carling Knockout Cup disappointment as they slipped to a 2-1 defeat over Magesi FC on Saturday evening at the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein. Bafana Ba Style went into this fixture seeking to secure their first tangible reward this season.
It was a crackling start for the visitors as they looked to land an early psychological blow. They were on a front foot with Teboho Mokoena and Peter Shalulile digging powerful shots from range, but the goalkeeper made crucial saves for his side.
The visitors continued to keep the ball in Magesi’s box, but the hosts were resolute and compact at the back, not leaving any space for Masandawana to pull one back. Eventually, it became two-way traffic as Magesi also looked to find the back of the net and probed Ronwen Williams to come out of the box to make crucial saves for his side.
With ten minutes left in the opening half, Masandawana were able to break the deadlock through Iqraam Rayners. It was Lucas Ribeiro who made a clever run closer to the area, passing it to Rayners. Rayners then drank the inviting ball and fired it into the guarded box to take his side to the break with a goal advantage.
Magesi sought to summon up an immediate response after the restart, which happened for them as they capitalised on Masandawana’s mistake three minutes into level matters.
There was a notable step up in both sides’ urgency and intensity. A superb Mokoena was inches away from snatching back the lead a few times, but the resilient Magesi goalkeeper stood his ground and denied the visitors any chance to get the ball behind the net.
In the closing stages of the match, the encounter was on the edge. Masandawana continued with the clear-cut chances but couldn’t get past the Magesi backline. Magesi, on the other hand, were beginning to look dangerous on the counter and with their set-pieces. Eventually, the home side capitalised from a corner to snatch the lead with a few minutes left in the match.
The Brazilians still had hope that with the remaining minutes, they would be able to take the game to extra time, but Magesi defended in numbers. Despite continuously knocking on the door, the visitors couldn’t find a way through.
How we lined up: Williams, Mudau, Kekana, Mvala, Modiba, Aubaas, Mokoena, Allende, Ribeiro, Shalulile, Rayners.
Substitutes: Onyango, Lebusa, Lunga, Morena, Maboe, Mkhulise, Maema, Letlhaku, Sales.
For the first time my blame will go ti the players and I know they’re not fielding themselves,the Carling Black Label final our players underestimated the Magesi opponents since we beat Chiefs convincingly and my blame is only base on our players that are also playing for Bafana I don’t know it was fatigue or not but all of them they let our team down including our goalkeeper.
Not that our opponents were best we just beat ourselves nje even on first half our goalkeeper was a spectacular not even one shot came to him and that’s where the problem started we thought after scoring it’s over,my last two cent plea guys let’s not select or want certain players to be always on line up look what happened with our so called stars we always wanted they were dismally and if the coach doesn’t field them people create many stories including the media that so and so is not loved by the coach and it’s unfair to the poor guy now people are insulting and blaming him for our lost not their favourite stars.
I personally don’t blame the coach and i still believe in his direct approach to the game,like us he was just let down by his players.My advice to him is,we have different team in our league and the Continent at large with different style of play like wise we must vary our approach to the game based on the opponent we are going to face even our personnel must change based on system we are going to use.The one size fits all approach don’t work in football because teams will study you easily and this is precisely what Man City is suffering from currently.Some opponents need smart,intelligent players and others need hard running players.Based on what i witnessed over the weekend my plea to management is to give the coach the freedom to do what he wants in terms of team selection and style of play and blame him when he fails not make him do what we want and blame him if things go bad.I can bet my last dollar the coach was caught between a rock and hard place in terms of team selection knowing very we that if he doesn’t play our so called trusted players and we lose he was gonna face hail storm but i doubt he wanted to start will all those players.
This is the most sensible comment I’ve read ever since, my take on this is that there was just no sense of urgency to win this game from our players, the urgency came when they were leading 2-1 but it was too late by then. My take, we are our own worst enemy when it comes to cup finals, we become big headed and do not respect the opponent.
Sundowns players were not supposed to b selected bt recalled from this Bafana game,a written note should have protected the coach and his technical team..Broos wasn’t interested in selecting our players bt is doing it too much&is haunting us big time.Then again very much disappointed by performance of Modibas elementary mistakes.Then Ribeiro on 2 occasions should have passed the ball 2 Modiba a person was in a good space 2 score.Then Shalulile doesn’t use his brain at all had he passed the ball 2 Rayners ,Sundowns should have scored.Again Shalulile had he let Mokoena have a shot at goal Sundowns should have scored.Wrong decisions from experienced players led to the team go 2 half time with a slender lead and it Sundowns who brought back Magesi 2 the game.Its Rayners&Allende who ddnt communicate and were disposessed&we conceded.Its not Mudau who dd that I saw it bt eyes were turned 2 the wrong guy here.These became complacent in the middle of the park then boom the 1st goal& everything broke loose.But in Mngqithi I still believe but I’m very disappointed which team r we going 2 beat if not Magesi?This is a pill that is very hard 2 swallow.
Let’s recall our striker from aMaZulu Godspower Ighodaro but really this thing of believing that Shalulile will change to the better we are deceiving ourselves I mean the guy is always on offside position can’t even trap the ball etc hope our Management will reinforce the team with the hungry players and I will keep on saying at Downs we need Feisal Salum and many big teams wants him even their team wants to extend his contract and give him a lot of money we can rely only on Mokoena a poor shooter of the ball most of the time we need hungry players and I missed dearly Tashreeg Matthews because this Shalulile of ours is firing the blanks,lastly I also asked why we recalled Savreeda if we will not use him the guy is occupying the space for a foreigner eish our team is letting us down sometimes.
I wish these comments do reach to our players and coaches. Greedyness costs us the game. Trainers greedy, Riberio is gready, Mdau is useless, Aubass is stupid. Actually all Bafana Bafana players who were in the starting line up for sundowns didn’t care about us. Bayazitshela ukuthi bangcono. Abazithobile yoh Mnqithi might lose his job if ebasaba. Poor defending from Mdaw, Mvala, Williams, kekana costs us the game. They should be penalize for poor defending and ball watching
All sundowns player’s must be accountable for the loss against Magesi FC. You can’t win the game with that mentality they showed. All is not lost but each and every player must evaluate their performance. If the player doesn’t perform. He must be benched. We can’t tolerate poor performance. We loved Sundowns a lot
Nalento yokuthi abadlali Beth bafun uRulani. Rubbish nonsense nonsense mani. How can we trust these players. Mdau,Mokoena nethimba labo. Kunzima ukusebenza namahyprocrites
Our so-called Bafana stars are no longer taking our Club seriously. We have no defense at all. on numerous occasions this season Williams have been our savior with no defense at all. This was bound to happen at some stage. Williams alone have been saving us.
Reberio must learn to share the ball. On 2 occasions we should have scored if he had shared the ball, but he decided to shoot.
When last did Modiba played a good game? He needs a serious self-retrospection.