Mamelodi Sundowns suffered their second league defeat of the season on Saturday evening at the Harry Gwala stadium as they went down by two goals to one to Maritzburg United.
The coaches made a couple of changes to the side that took on TS Galaxy midweek as Sphelele Mkhulise and Lesedi Kapinga replaced Brian Onyango and Rivaldo Coetzee in the starting eleven.
The game started at a high pace with Sundowns leading the initiative and dominating possession in the opposition half. Midfielder Teboho Mokoena had the first chance of the game as he took a shot from distance that deflected off of the defender and went out for a corner.
The two sides spent much of the opening thirty minutes engaged in a tactical affair, with Downs looking for ways to penetrate through the rigid Maritzburg block.
The Brazilians took the lead towards the end of the first half, through a well-worked move that saw Haashim Domingo play an inch-perfect cross to the Namibian forward Peter Shalulile, who dived low to tuck home a delightful glancing header.
The visitors found parity through a header from Alfred Ndengane three minutes before the half time whistle was blown.
Both sides came out of the half-time break with increased intensity and it was Downs who created the first two chances. Lesedi Kapinga turned on the magic to dance past a couple of defenders before taking a goal-bound shot that was cleared by defender Nazeer Allie. Shalulile was the next player to be denied by Allie as he was set up by Kapinga and had his shot blocked off the line.
The technical team looked towards the bench to change the game and shortly after the hour mark the coaches made a triple substitution, bringing on Themba Zwane, Thabiso Kutumela and Neo Maema to bolster the attack. All three substitutes had chances within a few minutes of coming on as The Brazilians chased the goal to put them in the lead.
Downs were offered a chance to take the lead as Allie was adjudged to have handled in the box and the referee pointed to the spot for a penalty. Substitute Zwane stepped up to the spot but had his effort from 12 yards saved by Engelhardt.
The drama was not over at the Harry Gwala stadium as Kennedy Mweene was adjudged to have brought down Amadou Soukouna in the box in stoppage time. Soukouna stepped up to take a penalty that beat Mweene to give the home side all the points in the evening.
Bafana Ba Style will now turn their attention to Nedbank Cup action as they return to the Lucas Moripe Stadium to take on Mathaithai FC in their Last 16 encounter.
How we lined up: K. Mweene, L. Lakay (86′ Modiba), G. Kekana, R. De Reuck, K. Mudau (66′ Zwane) , S. Mkhulise, T. Mokoena, H. Domingo (66′ Kutumela), L. Kapinga (66′ Maema), T. Morena, P. Shalulile
Subs: R. Goss, B. Onyango, T. Kutumela, N. Maema, T. Zwane, A. Modiba, D. Lunga, K Erasmus, M. Mvala
We need to take the learnings that come from this loss and move on.
I feel bad to loose the game in that manner, last minutes of the game same thing against baroka. zwane missing a penalty woooh very bad
My appeal to the Wisemen tell the players to score as many goals possible because we can see this referees are out to derail us,I remember the game against Royal AM if it was not many goals we scored we would have drew that game because the referee was very biased.
Uts not a train smash the league is ours even though it seem impossible to surpass 71 points.
The inconsistencies & complacency starts from the bench that is Mnqgithi, Mokoena &Komppela.For the better part of the past few games Brian Onyango has shown no fault at all aerial or on the ground but boom there’s Grant Kekana on the starting line up why?I’ve been asking this if you are not starting with Zwane ,why put Maema on the bench because I’m still of the opinion that Neo scores great goals& create them at will.You 3 coaches don’t forget that if Chiefs can be given back the opportunity to play those 2 games they never pitched up&win them on the process we will only be 4 points ahead of them &once we played them&lose against them will be only ahead of them by a single point &by then anything can happen.I can’t believe that we r still having that hangover of conceding or forfeiting a 2 goal cushion against Supersport &we haven’t recovered from that,I mean after that we have never had a 3 wins in a row or let alone a 2 games winning streak in the league matches since then.Mnqgithi, Mokoena &Kompela wake up stop this chop& changing of players unless there are injuries, it’s crunch time now there’s no time to accomodate inconsistencies of certain individuals because you owed them game time.If Denis Onyango is not injured bring him on board.I mean there was no need for Mweene to be caught at nomans land on that corner that we conceded a goal & again that penaly we conceded was uncalled for by Mweene&Modiba was very close to that ball & should have never let Mweene come &collected the ball and if he was to commit a rational foul like that, because the player was posing no threat at all,high school errors if you ask me.But in reality we don’t have the divine right to win every game we are humans after all,we win some,drew&lose some.We must take positives only by saying we have points in the bag rather than games in hand but in the process we must not underestimate our opponents that will kill us on the dying moments of this campaign &we have been conceding goals very late, since we conceded against Supersport & 3 coaches take note of that.Kaboyelo I still remain.
Very well played by the team… Don’t beat yourselves up for this loss… Besides the two glaring mistakes the referee made, i wasn’t happy with his overall performance… He was allowing our players to be kicked by the opposition. As for Zwane, he uses the same technique when taking penalties… It’s become easy to figure his out. But all in all the team played well… Mokoena showed his class
Hard luck Yellow Nation.knowing South African Football. This is what happens against Sundowns all the Times because there are certain Teams that succeed via Referees. Because is clear that no Team can beat Sundowns in the fair play therefore referees of Sowetan teams they going to Moor Sundowns. For Sundowns is to make sure that they score Goals and convert every chance they get.