Downs’ late night date
HARDENED: MASANDAWANA VERY USED TO LATE KICK-OFFS IN AFRICA
Preparations for the Petro Luanda game have been tweaked.
Pitso Mosimane has no concerns about the late kick-off time for his side’s opening Caf Champions League Group C game against Petro de Luanda at Loftus Versveld tonight.
A 9pm kick-off is foreign to South African football but Mamelodi Sundowns have become accustomed to starting matches at this time of night in the Caf
Champions League, where they have faced numerous North African teams that usually play their home games late.
Preparations for the game have been tweaked to accommodate longer hours of waitng before kick-off but Masandawana coach Mosimane says he is used to this kind of programme, as a veteran of Africa’s elite competition.
“We have played at 11pm in North Africa when it is Ramadan. You have to be very careful because the day can be very long and you must be very careful because you can eat and get bored. Normally when you are used to sleeping at a certain time, your body switches off because it is used to it. Your body has a pattern and once you disturb the mood and the mentality, it can get tricky,” said Mosimane.
“In North Africa 9pm is normal, they don’t play earlier, 10pm and 11pm are okay because the day is different there and in the morning there are no people in the streets. But here in South Africa at 6am you can see that we are going somewhere. It is a culture and it is a different mentality,” Mosimane added before he went on to congratulate his Masandawana star players Themba Zwane and Denis Onyango who have been shortlisted for the African Player-of-the-Year and the Interclubs Player-of-the-Year while “Jingles” himself made the shortlist for the Coach-of-the- Year award.
“Congratulations to Themba, Denis and Percy Tau for being nominated in that space. Zwane was the top goal-scorer in the Champions League and he had a fantastic run. None of these people who I have mentioned were nominated because they have done well by themselves. They have been nominated for the team. We, as the coaches, can feel big or whatever but we don’t play, the players play ... I am humbled to be acknowledged because once you are in that space, it is important. Once you win it then it is a cherry on top,” he said.
Tonight’s game will be followed by an extremely busy December for Sundowns, where they are scheduled to play another six matches, made up of Champions League games in Morocco against Wydad Casablanca and in Algeria against USM Alger, league games against Stellenbosch, Bidvest Wits and Polokwane City, followed by the Telkom Knockout final against Maritzburg United. on December 14.