With just five minutes in regulation time, Mamelodi Sundowns were able to kill the game with a 1-0 scoreline against Royal AM on Saturday evening at the Lucas Moripe Stadium. It was Peter Shalulile who headed the ball into the box from Lesiba Nku’s cross to see the hosts collect the maximum points at home. The victory saw the Brazilians extend their unbeaten streak in the domestic league to 50 games.
It was a very toilsome first half having Bafana Ba Style struggle to get the ball in the danger area. It didn’t help that Thwihli Thwahla was absorbing the pressure and defended excellently to deny the hosts an opener. The second half however, was a lot better, especially with the introduction of Bathusi Aubaas and Nku. They many chances created in the second stanza finally paid when Shalulile finally broke the deadlock on the 85th minute.
Reviewing what was a nail-biting encounter, Coach Rulani congratulated his men for getting the desired results.
“Congratulations to the Club and the boys. I thought it was a good effort and a good shift. Earlier on I was saying as coaches we can’t measure our teams based on the result, unfortunately. We look at the performance and ask ourselves, if we play like this ten times, how many of those games would we win? And so, I ask myself that if we played the way we played today ten times, I think we would win nine out of ten and I think the better side won today,” he said.
“We had a lot of control in the first half. We struggled a little bit with the early balls behind with the speed and the counterattack, but we dealt very well with that. There was no pressure from our build-ups, so we could always find the half space. The problem was progressing from the half space once we got into that area just in front of the defensive line, the balls wouldn’t stick and we would have so many turnovers from Themba Zwane, Thembinkosi Lorch and Neo Maema. The only person that is press resistant is Sipho Mbule and when he went into that area, he could keep the ball but the main action wasn’t progressive,” he continued with his analysis of the match.
With the fixtures from this week done and dusted, Downs will shift their focus to the next week, which holds only two fixtures for them. First up will be the return fixture against Royal AM, this time, at the Harry Gwala Stadium on Tuesday evening, before travelling to Mpumalanga to face TS Galaxy.
How we lined up: D. Onyango, Mudau, Modiba, Mvala, Coetzee, Mkhulise, Mbule, Maema, Matthews, Lorch, Shalulile.
Subs: Pieterse, Mdunyelwa, Mashego, Aubaas, Esquivel, Mendieta, Nku, Morena.
Pls my favourite coach next season promote our DDC team youngsters players like Letlhaku,Ramotsei and Caresle etc and play them not to have them on the training sessions only.
For once let’s promote and also field those players I think it’s only us here in Psl not having our own youngsters I will not talk about Mabena because we bought him from school of excellence,the last time we had our own was having Mailula and he also played.
Rhulani used to say he loves and believes in youngsters but all that is not happening anymore and the above players I’ve mentioned can easy the burden that is experiencing by Shalulile.
Very good point Muzi,we can’t invest so much in development are not reap the rewards of investment.I watched our DDC against Swallows over the weekend those boys play the Sundowns football with pace,flair and are very much talented.There is this tall boy, i think is Khoza,he wears jersey no 25,the boy simplifies football and the likes of Thando Nkosi and Buthelezi also calm on the ball and rarely loses it,Mabena,Letlhaku and sensational Raluane(jersey no 7),the boy plays like European stars,i like the way he thinks,he doesn’t just cross the ball for the sake of it,he also picks a teammate with his cross,i think Lunga,Mashego,Modiba and Mudau can learn a thing or two from him bcoz they are terrible when it comes to crosses,and also the two central defenders they always play forward passes,especially the left footed one,the boy is matured,Ramotsei and Carelse know one thing,finishing and finishing they both remind me of Mambush .Most of our senior team defenders pass goalkeeper or side ways and the can’t even move forward with the ball except for Riva,Kekana when he has the ball he mostly passes it to Williams and Mvala just stand,put his foot on the ball and open his arms motionless.We want a game between DDCandsenior team b4 end of the season and publish the results on this pltform.