Downs in for a difficult time

With the heartbeat of the league title race still pumping, Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane (above) will head into tonight’s clash with Baroka FC at the Lucas Moripe Stadium eager to register maximum points, but the Downs coach concedes that it won’t be easy to come up against a Bakgakga side fighting to stay in topflight football.

The Brazilians are second on the league table with 54 points, just three points behind leaders Bidvest Wits, while Baroka are fighting for their very lives as they sit second from bottom after collecting just 23 points with only three games left to the end of the season.

Masandawana come into this game having drawn 2-2 with Platinum Stars, before bouncing back to winning ways with a 2-0 win over Orlando Pirates this past weekend. The last two results didn’t go as coach Mosimane anticipated, something that concerns him heading into this tie, particularly against a Baroka team which he says doesn’t sit back and defend.

“Baroka are emotional, they attack you,” said the Downs coach. “They are not a kind of a team that sits back and let you come at them. And they need the points. You never know in football, if you asked me how I would see our last two games against Platinum Stars and Orlando Pirates, I would have said three points against Stars and a draw against Pirates, that’s what I thought. But football teaches you a lesson and it is the opposite.”

Mosimane is right to be wary of Baroka. The last time the teams met Downs won 1-0 courtesy of a late Hlompho Kekana strike.