Ronwen: Sundowns want to do it for SA
RULANI Mokwena will send his Mamelodi Sundowns team on to the Loftus Versfeld pitch for tonight’s CAF Champions League semi-final secondleg clash against Esperance (8pm kickoff) with a clear message – don’t be afraid to lose the game.
The Sundowns coach is aware that “the automatic response of the human being is safety”, and has seen in recent matches how his team have tended to be “conservative with their mentality”.
“No matter how much you love dogs – and I love dogs – but when I see a Rottweiler, my instinct is to run. It is not to caress the dog.
“Even with footballers, the first instance when they get into a situation where they are playing games of consequence and get closer to winning, the mentality and the reaction of the body and the mind is to say let’s not lose it. And that’s a problem.”
He believes that it is his task to remind his players that they have reached the level they are at through being bold, and wants them to keep at it.
“I encourage them and say go for it! You’ve got this far because you went for it, and it is the only way to go across that line. So I tell them, ‘Guys, put the handbrake down and play with little fear’.
“If you lose, that’s okay, because football is all about winning, losing or drawing. If we are afraid to lose, what are saying to the people who are bereaved, that it’s the end of the world? We lose cars, we lose dogs, we lose pets – we even lose friends. That’s life. And we can lose football matches too.”
Do not, however, misconstrue that to mean Mokwena would be okay with losing tonight. Far from it, because he wants and needs a victory “like the desert needs the rain”.
Besides the lure of being the coach who added a second star above the Sundowns club crest, Mokwena is also eager to go to the Fifa Club World Cup, where he will test himself against some of the top coaches he admires.
“We are going to play tomorrow’s game to win, and to win the Champions League (thereafter) because that’s what we want to achieve. And it (the Club World Cup) is a competition we want to play in,” he said.
All that, though, is looking a little too far ahead, Sundowns needing to first overturn a 1-0 deficit against a defensively miserly Esperance team who need only keep a clean sheet to progress to the final.
Now in their second successive semifinal, the Brazilians are counting on their supporters to give them a huge boost and cheer them to victory, and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams has called on the entire country to get behind them tonight.
“We need everyone. Let us do it for South Africa, for South African football. Let Sundowns go all the way, with your support. It can only lift the SA game,” the Bafana captain said.
“Let South Africa as a whole get behind Sundowns. For one day, put your personal clubs aside. We are doing it for the next generation so that they can dream big.
So long as they do not play with the fear of losing, Sundowns have a chance.
In any case, though, last weekend’s defeat in Rades means they have no choice but to play to win, Mokwena’s motivations notwithstanding.