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Sundowns mapping out plan for Champions League playground
Downs' continental assignments begin with an away group stage qualifying fixture against AS Maniema Union of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mamelodi Sundowns will face Cape Town City in a DStv Premiership encounter at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday. Picture: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix
It does not take much to see that Mamelodi Sundowns are in a class of their own this season, sitting at the summit of the DStv Premiership and as well as having reached the MTN8 Final.
The question, however, is – can they translate their domestic form into the CAF Champions League where they are certainly going to meet their match?
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Downs will begin this season’s Champions League campaign with a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo where they will face AS Maniema Union in the qualifying round for the group stages.
Sundowns are expected to ease past the low profile Congolese side who will be making their fourth appearance in the qualifying rounds as they have never reached the group stages.
Having gone without conceding a goal in the domestic league this season, co-head coach Rulani Mokwena hopes to maintain that level of performance as Sundowns look to reach their third final following the runners-up run two decades ago and their only triumph in 2016 where they beat Zamalek in what was a two-legged affair final at the time.
“The challenge we have now is to make sure that we continue with the process. There is absolutely no shortcut to get to where we are because we are extremely ambitious as a club and we have very high expectations and goals that have been set for us,” said Mokwena.
“At the same time we work extremely hard to just walk into games with the perception or the feeling that we are entitled to win, we create a lot of scoring situations by being tenacious and being committed to the course and this is what we will continue to do [in the Champions League].
We want to win every game and by wanting that, we have to put ourselves in the best possible condition to win on match-day. This is the mentality that we go with because it is a culture that we are trying to inculcate in the group and so far the response from the players has been tremendous.
“Ours is to just keep making sure that we remain focused on the objectives that we have so we can continue to bring a lot of happiness to the Sundowns supporters because our number one opponent is Sundowns,” he added.
