Mamelodi Sundowns will resume their CAF Champions League group stages campaign in Cairo when they play against Pyramids FC on a midweek fixture.
Bafana Ba Style, who drew 0-0 against the hosts a week ago, have arrived in Cairo and have been in preparations for the return fixture against the Egyptian side to ensure that they achieve their desired results on Tuesday evening.
“The trip has been good. We had a slight stop at the airport and an 8 hour flight, which meant that as soon as we arrived, we had to do some activations to try and wake the major muscle groups and do some injury preventatives. It’s a bit cold here as the North is facing winter but we are excited to be here and happy to experience a beautiful football country with very good facilities,” said coach Rulani Mokwena.
After the exciting goalless draw between the two sides who are meeting for the second leg in the group stages, coach Rulani anticipates a difficult encounter as he believes that their opponents are a good side.
“Pyramids look like a team that is very paced and this is based on analysis. I got a glimpse of watching their midweek game on Thursday when they played to a 2-2 draw. In fact, they should have won that game. They have four players that didn’t start against us, that started in the midweek league game. Abdullah El-Said, their captain had a very good game. Mostafa Fathi started and had a great game. They are still a very strong team that is aggressive with the ball. They are a good team with a lot of good players,” the Downs tactician stated when speaking about their counterparts.
“We have done a lot of work and our analysis on their performance against TP Mazembe, which was completely different to the performance they had against us at home. It looks like they are a team that has different personalities from home and away fixtures,” he continued.
Masandawana will want to avoid another draw at this stage of the competition as they are looking to qualify for the knockout stages and to maintain their hold in Group A. Coach Rulani expressed the importance of winning the match against Pyramids and the remaining encounters in the group stages.
“We are excited to be here and to make sure that we win the match. A positive result is very important. We know we have three games to go and in those three games, we have got enough within us to make sure we get the desired results. We’ve got two away games. The first one is against Pyramids FC then we’ve got FC Nouadhibou in Mauritania which will be difficult because of the weather conditions and the artificial pitch. We then finish off at home against TP Mazembe. Hopefully by then we know what to do to make sure we not only qualify from the group stages, but we finish first. We will just go one game at a time and give everything we have,” he concluded.
Mamelodi Sundowns will meet Pyramids FC on a CAF Champions League Group A thriller on Tuesday evening at the 30 June Stadium in Cairo. Kick off is scheduled for 18H00.
The problem I’m having with our coach,no matter how other players are trying on the training BUT we know who will be on the starting eleven and I think it’s demoralising to other players,maybe it’s me who doesn’t know football.
My wish today on middlefield we can start with Zungu,Seabi or Mokoena and Mbule because that team is strong and aggressive we need to starve their front line but it’s only a wish nje sobona abo Allende,Mokoena and others.Zungu and Mbule are good passers of the ball but they will be introduce on the last fifteen minutes.
You are correct member,some players are guaranteed starting place.Players like Mbule,Zungu and Maboe they always give 110% percent whenever given a chance but come the next game you will find them in the stand.Truth be told the Zwaneless Sundowns is very very good,aggressive and hard running gives opponents no breathing space when not in possession of the ball,with Zwane our play is forever on tortoise pace hence we struggle to score when he starts.We need his ball retention skills when we are leading.He started against,Amazulu and Pyramids twice how many goals did we score? and we scored more than one goal against Supersport and Cape Town spurs when he did not start.Coming to today’s game I’m disappointed with Mkhulise’s performance,he’s got all the skill and confidence to beat opponents but his end product is useless,his game lacks maturity and sharp brains.Coach substitutions should keep the same level of the game or take the game to the next level.That game today’s lacked Mbule and Maboe’s aggression and ability to go forward.