Sundowns growing as a team – Pitso
WITH THE enormous experience and exposure of continental football, Mamelodi Sundowns are coming of age.
Downs coach Pitso Mosimane watched his men forge an impressive comeback in a 2-1 loss to Zesco United in the first leg of the CAF Champions League semi-final at a jampacked Levy Mwanawasa Stadium on Saturday. A relieved Mosimane, whose men got a crucial away goal courtesy of Khama Billiat, reckons Sundowns are beginning to understand continental football.
“We’re growing as a team. It’s understanding continental football. We are maturing and becoming a little bit more experienced,” said Mosimane who was forced to change gears tactically as Zesco led the Brazilians 2-0 until the last three minutes of the match. He then switched to playing three at the back and piled pressure on Zesco in an all out attack. It paid off with Billiat getting the much needed goal to halve the deficit. Jackson Mwanza scored Zesco’s two goals.
“We got an away goal but we still lost. It’s still a thorn in the flesh. Football, you will never get it right all the time. You can’t have your cake and eat. We got an away goal but we are not happy,” said Mosimane.
Sundowns didn’t have it easy as Zesco were all over them. The Zambians made life difficult for the seven times PSL champions, whose passing game was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s unbelievable what we are getting. We are seeing different football. At home you don’t get an attack like that with four people coming at you,” said Mosimane.
In the second leg this coming Saturday, Mosimane and his men will be bracing themselves for a torrid time. The Downs coach doesn’t expect the Zambian champions to sit back and defend. The Brazilians have to be cautious since Zesco have an impressive away record. But Mosimane takes solace in the fact that the Zesco defence does leak at times.
“They are terrific. They won all their games away except Wydad. They lost against Wydad, who lost four against Zamalek. You see how football is. You can never put things together. It’s crazy. This team survived Al Ahly but they concede goals in every other match. Even their last game they played a team at the bottom of the log but they conceded a goal. So we also have a weakness of conceding at home. We conceded one against Enyimba, Mediana and AS Vita, which is not good..”
Mosimane’s counterpart George Lwandamina says the men from Ndola can’t celebrate until the second leg is done and dusted.
“We cannot feel comfortable at this stage. We are talking about a good team in Sundowns. So we cannot celebrate. Not until we play the last game. Our plan, first it was to bring them into our game. We know they are a very fast team and we cannot match them in terms of speed so what we did was bring them into our game. That’s how we managed to get a win.”
That Sundowns managed to get a goal could make life difficult for the Zesco coach and his men. However he is confident of a positive outcome in Tshwane.
“In this kind of tournament, when you get an away goal you have a brighter future. That’s why teams always fight to score away from home because it will count in the end. We realise we’ll have to play hard for 90 minutes, not giving them a chance of rolling us over,” said Lwandamina.
Before clashing with Zesco, Mosimane will have to do the balancing act once again as his men take on Chippa United in the second leg semi-final of the MTN8 at the Lucas Moripe Stadium this Wednesday..