Denis Onyango made several crucial saves that led to Mamelodi Sundowns keeping their third clean sheet in the DStv Premiership this season in the 2-0 victory over Kaizer Chiefs last time out. The highly-rated shot-stopper believes Sunday’s win was important in setting the tone in the early parts of the season.
“Winning the previous match was very important for us as players and for the club because it was [about] the bragging rights. The win was also a statement of intent (so early in the season) and that will go a long way in alerting everyone on our intentions to defend our league crown,” said Onyango.
After overcoming the Amakhosi, The Brazilians face a number of key fixtures for the remainder of September. As an experienced member of the side, Onyango knows the importance of developing consistency in the early parts of the season. “[The most important thing] for us is to stick to the playing style of the club and to maintain our winning mentality. We are also looking to [keep] the clean sheets because we know how important it is to keep winning in the early games of the season and of course we must take this mentality into the next game.” the shot-stopper further stated.
With Masandawana top of the league table after three matches played, Bafana Ba Style will turn their attention to this weekend’s game against TS Galaxy, who proved to be a fierce opponent in last seasons’ campaign.
“We must give our best in every game to try and get maximum results as the season progresses. It was difficult for us last season against TS Galaxy. They created chances in the two games [that we played against them] from penalties, one saved by Kennedy [Mweene] and one saved by me, so we need to give them maximum attention. They are a very good team that is often praised for their ability to fight for every ball and work hard around the pitch.” said Onyango on his next opponents.
Denis continued and emphasised the significant goal for him and his teammates in the upcoming encounter against The Rockets: “The guys must just stay focused and try as much as possible to get maximum points. Playing against Owen Da Gama’s team is always difficult because they are a very physical team. They play a man-marking game but we will try our best to get the results that we want. Overall, we must take every game as important as the previous game. It’s important for us to win as much as we can in the first round of the season because we have a lot of home games and it’s important to get results when we play on our turf.”
On Monday, 13 September, the PSL Champions vaccinated their members in partnership with the Department of Health in protecting themselves and their loved ones in the fight against the Covid-19 Virus.
“It’s a very good initiative proposed by Mamelodi Sundowns and the MEC of Gauteng with the aim of vaccinating more people so that supporters can troop back to the stadiums. The club has made good efforts to make sure that the entire team, the technical team plus the supporting staff are all vaccinated. It’s a very good example to our supporters that want to come back to the stadiums and support us. I believe that it’s a really good initiative as it will encourage people out there and the supporters to get vaccinated so that we have them back in stadiums as soon as possible because when they are vaccinated we know that everyone is safe.” Onyango further declared.
“We want everyone to be safe because we don’t want to lose any of our supporters. So it’s important that people get vaccinated and it will be left to the government to see if they can allow supporters to come back to the stadiums. We would love to have our supporters back. Safety comes first and the lives of supporters matter to us, so the sooner the process, the better for us and for the supporters.” echoed the Sundowns goalkeeper.
Next up for Masandawana is an encounter against the resilient TS Galaxy at Loftus Versfeld Stadium which kicks off is at 17h00 on Sunday.
Amaphuzu ethu amathathu la
Heita masandawana I’m positive about this game, I hope our coaches will select the right squad
What a boring first half. Are these players even training? They look so unfit. I thought it was fitness issue, but other teams are playing such an enterprising football. After watching such a beautiful game of football between Swallows and SSU, this game is an anti-climax.