Sundowns hamstrung by injuries to key men

It is a bit disappointing for Mamelodi Sundowns to have lost against Esperance in their bid to conquer Africa again. In the situation that they find themselves in now, when they play these Champions League games, they now need to win home and away – it has to become a habit.

Pitso Mosimane said after the game that part of the reason they lost is because of injuries to his key players. Each and every team has their arsenal of players that will form the core of the team. Then you have other players such as Sibusiso Vilakazi and Leonardo Castro who are not regular starters.

Even though they are proven quality, when you lose your core players, it is going to weaken the entire team and disrupt their momentum.

We are disappointed as a nation with Platinum Stars after they lost to Tunisian side CS Sfaxien and seem to be down and out. I believe the team will use this as a learning curve to inspire them to go back and get better results.

Despite the poor display in the Confederation Cup group stages so far, I am sure the players have learned new environments and new tactics on how to approach the game.

Their level of understanding football can only grow going forward and the experience they’ve gained will be maximised at international level when they represent their national teams.

All they need to do is improve their position in the Absa Premiership so they can return to Africa and make sure they build from what they have learned this year. We need more South African teams dominating on the continent.

Despite the two disappointing results from Stars and Sundowns, SuperSport did well; they are showing that the team is growing. But they need to make sure that just like they are getting good results away, they must also win at home because they will be doing themselves a huge favour.

If they don’t win their games, they need to fight for draws. Defeats at home are not an option.

I also want to applaud Teboho Mokoena of SuperSport United who has been phenomenal for his club and the national Under-20 side.

He scored and assisted for SuperSport away to TP Mazembe over the weekend. A lot of credit should be given to him because he has put up many Man-of-theMatch performances but that did not go to his head.

He is not even overwhelmed by the fact he is playing on the continent.

You can find players losing focus and hunger. But Teboho plays with hunger as if he has never won any Man-of-the-Match awards before, and that is what we want to see.

Teboho is very lucky because the maturity that we now see in him came quickly.

Normally it takes time. We don’t want only one player to shine, but more of the youngsters to perform and that will help our football in the long run.

Lastly, I want to touch on the promotion play-offs with all the teams on an equal footing. It is exciting that we have all the teams getting draws and that creates a fascinating mini-league, which I believe is one that will go down to the wire in terms of deciding who will join the elite league.