Mamelodi Sundowns will meet Richards Bay FC on Tuesday evening for their first encounter in the 16th edition of the Nedbank Cup campaign. The Brazilians approach this game with the intention of improving their performance from the past season and defending their trophy. Speaking ahead of the game, Coach Rulani Mokwena shared the team’s expectations from the opponents.
“Richards Bay is a good opponent and fortunately we recently played them. We got an opportunity to watch their past games and their most recent encounter. They are an interesting and well-coached team that possesses good players and with all of that, it’s going to be a tough game for us.”
Masandawana will not be meeting Richards Bay for the first time in the competition. Having played against each other last season and in other competitions, both teams will be starting on a clean slate on Tuesday evening with no cushion in the competition. The Brazilians go into the competition as defending champions of the trophy and would like to retain their title as the Nedbank Cup Champions.
Coming straight from a league fixture on the weekend, the squad has had to recover and shift their focus to the Nedbank Cup. Coach Mokwena expressed that the technical team will ensure that they help to facilitate and give the players as much support as they can to improve as well as to perform consistently well throughout the competition.
“We want to always be a difficult team to play against, but also a team that respects all our opponents. We work very hard to give ourselves chances to win all matches we participate in. “As a team, we have to do our utmost best to defend the trophy and do better than we did last year. Playing to win is what we are prepared to do and to be consistent.” Said the Brazilians Coach as he communicated the team’s approach to defending the trophy.
The Bafana Ba Style Coach also mentioned that with the extensive squad the team has, every player is important and is good enough to represent the club and what it stands for. He further revealed that prior to their evening clash, the team had a tactical session in preparation for the game. Coach Rulani disclosed that he has gathered sufficient information on the opposition and aso added how he has invested a lot of time into the analysis of the KwaZulu Natal side and collectively together with the technical team passed on as much information as they can to the players without overloading them with data.
Mamelodi Sundowns welcome Richards Bay in the Nedbank Cup competition opener taking place on the 7th of February 2023 at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium. Kick off is at 19h30, live on SuperSport.
Please allow Msani to play and come against Mudau