De Sa’s team made us sweat, says Pitso

Michaelson Gumede

Instead of lauding his side for waking up from their Caf Champions League elimination hangover, Pitso Mosimane remained humble in victory and heaped praise on his counterpart Roger de Sa after Mamelodi Sundowns snatched a 1-0 Absa Premiership win at Platinum Stars on Sunday.

Although De Sa is yet to win a game in charge of Dikwena, he has impressed Mosimane in the way he has his side performing.

“Trust me, not many teams will go there and win, it is not easy,” Mosimane told SuperSport TV.

“I think in a short space of time Roger has done exceptionally well after the mess he found there. We undermine our local coaches, but he has done very well.”

Khama Billiat (right) marked his return to domestic football by scoring the winner in only the second minute.

“Khama scored a beautiful goal and you can see his confidence is coming back slowly but surely. We were helped by the goal we scored. It was a typical Sundowns goal with Hlompho Kekana finding Khama behind the defence. It was a hard-earned win … we were sweating for this win.

“They put us under pressure a bit but we used a bit of experience to control the game and slowed it down a little bit, especially in the first half, because they reacted.”

De Sa said Khama’s goal rocked their boat as their game plan was immediately reduced to shreds.

“When we conceded in the second minute our whole game plan was out of the window, everything that we worked on we just had to forget about,” he said on SuperSport TV.