Mamelodi Sundowns overcame adversity by defeating Lamontville Golden Arrows in Saturday night’s high-profile match thanks to Peter Shalulile and Themba Zwane.
Both teams had won their previous league matches going into this one, but considering the history between the two sides, the Brazilians were considered the favourites to prevail.
After a competitive performance between the two teams, Downs Co-Coach Rulani Mokwena offered a summary of the game and the challenges they had in controlling the play. He said:
“I believe the first half was far superior than the second half. Although the second half wasn’t as smooth, we still put in solid effort and had a strong work ethic, so I believe we eventually deserved to win.
The biggest difficulty we currently face in our games is that we are in charge of the game’s tempo and intensity.
These games are very challenging when one of the two teams is in charge of the tempo and intensity because the other team’s players – possibly the final three or four teams – arrive to disrupt.
“It gets a little harder to have a football match, and then it looks a little bit like Sundowns isn’t playing well, but in reality Sundowns are the only ones trying to have a football match, because with everything else there are stoppages, time wasters, fouls, throw-ins, and goal kicks that take too long to restart, and when you have that then it breaks up the momentum of the game,” said one observer.
Even though it doesn’t seem as smooth as it should, these games are incredibly challenging since just one side controls the match’s speed and intensity.
Masandawana led by only one goal at the half thanks to Shalulile’s penalty kick, but the visitors produced an upset as soon as the second half started.
Four minutes after the break, Pule Mmodi tied the score for Abafana Best’thende, which allowed Downs to slowly score their second goal.
The hosts won thanks to an own goal from Mshishi’s cutback in the area after Bafana Ba Style were largely left in charge of the game.
“We didn’t play well in the second half and didn’t make enough passes.
The difficulty we had was when the wingers were left somewhat higher and failed to return, and you had a front three that continuously cheated.
As a result, we were forced to move our full backs into wingback positions in an effort to stretch the final line.
The gap between our players’ wingbacks and fullbacks, though, was a little too much (because the opposing wingers were cheating), but you have to limit that by having more and more passes, which we lacked. Coach Rulani said.
In their first eight games, the reigning champions have compiled a record of five victories, one tie, and two defeats.
“The shift of the point of attack is an essential one, for rotation and for finding the unloaded side, but it has to come from various spots,” Coach Rulani remarked while discussing the challenges of playing against opponents who pack up their defence in expectation of an assault from his squad.
“It has to happen maybe from the full back finding the 8 who can find the opposite 8, then trying to create opportunities where you can have this overload where you’ve got a 2v1 of that fullback who’s waiting for the switch or maybe even the winger who’s waiting for the switch.
Football is now trending more vertically, away from that [type of] possession, switching, and horizontal diagonals, in my opinion.
Without even straying too far from the intended purpose, it’s more about what you can develop and what possibilities you can uncover in the following line.