It was raining goals at the Lucas Moripe Stadium when Mamelodi Sundowns returned to winning ways following a 4-1 victory against Richards Bay on Saturday night. Goals from Tashreeq Matthews, Malibongwe Khoza, and Iqraam Rayners saw the Pretoria-based side head back to the top of the league table.
The visitors sent a strong message early in the game when they were awarded a free-kick just outside the box. From a tight angle on the right, the effort that had been received from the setpiece rattled the woodwork to deny them an opener.
The hosts were also creating chances, but the defence of the KwaZulu-Natal side was just too strong and was not giving them space to score any goals. On the 15th minute, however, the hosts finally managed to find space and opened the scoring through Matthews. Nuno Santos had made a cross to Matthews, who redirected the ball with his head to the box, but the effort was smacked away by the goalkeeper. Matthews then found the rebound and struck the net.
Santos almost added his name on the scoresheet nine minutes later through a long-range effort, but the keeper put his body on the line to deny him a goal. Rayners suffered the same fate a minute later when his effort from a tight angle was blocked by the goalkeeper’s body.
The Natal Rich Boys were struggling to clear their lines, and Masandawana were capitalising on that and maximising their opportunities. In the 27th minute, from a rebound again, Khoza doubled the advantage for the hosts.
The visitors were retaliating and eventually, it worked in their favour when the ball was snatched off Khoza’s feet. A run was made to the area, and as Ronwen Williams came out, the ball got lobbed over him to find the back of the net.
In the 40th minute, the referee pointed on the spot in favour of Bafana Ba Style. This came after Khuliso Mudau was shoved inside the area. Iqraam Rayners fired the shot past the goalkeeper to make it three goals, giving Downs some breathing room against their Richards Bay counterparts. After a thrilling four-goal opening half, the host went to the break with the upper hand.
The hosts almost scored their fourth goal early in the second stanza. Mudau had delivered the ball into the area. Santos made a run towards the ball, but the keeper came out before him to clear the ball.
The Brazilians started to flirt with danger as their visitors kept the ball in their half and threatened the rearguard. Williams also miscued a shot as he tried to clear the ball, but it was intercepted by the host. Luckily, Mosa Lebusa managed to clear the ball away with an excellent tackle.
In the 63rd minute, the hosts found their fourth goal. Santos had delivered the ball to Rayners, who lobbed the ball over the goalkeeper, who was off his line. The ball rattled the woodwork. Matthews was the quickest to run forward to take the rebound and punched it into the box.
Rayners almost found a fifth goal for Downs in the 73rd minute. The ball came from Mudau on the right flank, but Rayners’ shot was blocked to deny him a brace. In the remaining minutes of the match, the two sides played end-to-end football, but there were no more goals scored.
How we lined up: Williams ©, Mudau, Lebusa, Khoza, Modiba, Aubaas, Allende, Santos, Matthews, Sales, Rayners.
Subs: Onyango, Johannes, Basadien, T. Mokoena, Mkhulise, Adams, B. Mokoena, Maseko, Shalulile.
Nice win today and happy for Santos he’s incredible but the main main is another another Reisinoh that one we will kill most teams ngaye.
Guys let’s solve this issue of setpieces against us and I’m afraid North African teams will destroy us big time and my worry we do have a setpieces specialist I don’t what he’s doing if we are terrible like on defending setpieces.
Overall it was a good line up with Mokoena on the bench and that young Mokoena is dangerous I like him.Maybe Khoza must go back to middle field not at the back.
What a big improvement in our game, especially the 1st 20 minutes of the 1st half. I didn’t watch the Arrows game and I felt like not watching this one too, but had nothing else to do. I don’t regret watching the game at all. Nuno Santos is so amazing, he just came in and acclimatised so quickly. His long range pin-point passes are so amazing. Iqram Rayners is going to benefit a lot from him. What a big shift from the technical team in terms of the style of play. I saw everyone was making forward passes, including Khoza. Cardoso was also encouraging the players to move forward with speed from the touch line. I think players are also beginning to realise that they’re not guaranteed positions in the starting 11. I’m just hoping Cardoso won’t go back to his favouritism again and he’ll reward players based on their performance. This will create a healthy competition in the team. After our 2nd goal, we went a little bit back to factory settings of back passes but Nuno Santos remained the big difference. The Lucas Moripe’s pitch is doing our football a lot of injustice. CoT is neglecting the stadium, and management should seek an alternative. Well done boyz and the technical team. What I saw yesterday is so encouraging, only the pitch is the problem every time we play at Lucas Moripe. Definitely next week, I’ll be at the stadium to support the team
Good win masandawana im happy for the boys job well done,
Nuno Santos what a great player, nice signing there, no doubt and he deserved the man of the match.
Great win and the starting 11 was an offensive one.Hope we can be consistent by playing offensive starting 11 in all our games, home or away,when we play on a front foot no team can stop us.Downs has all the arsenal to score in every game.If we can have another play with an eye to spot runners and have the confidence to play forward passes like Santos we are going to destroy teams.I’m very much impressed by B. Mokoena,the boy will go places if given a chance and freedom to express himself.Lastly hope we learned from the Chelsea/Brighton game that playing with the ball at the back produces bad results,Chelsea scored first,got red card bcoz of playing at the back and also gave away cheap goals.We have our own style of football and we can’t trade our style with useless European style.