Sundowns must box clever against City – Pitso

Some of renowned boxer Floyd Mayweather’s tricks are the high-guard and the forearm crush – and that is what you can expect from Mamelodi Sundowns, when they host Cape Town City tonight at the Lucas Moripe Stadium, of course, not in the literal sense.

Downs coach Pitso Mosimane described this Absa Premiership affair as a “big one” and his side will need to outsmart their opponents a little like boxers do.

Sundowns will be playing this game with one eye focussed on the return-leg of the Caf Champions League preliminary tie with Congolese side Otoho d’Oyo this weekend. Sundowns trail 2-1 after the first leg in Congo-Brazzaville.

READ: Makgalwa reminds me of Percy Tau – Pitso

“This one is a toe-to-toe and we need to box like Mayweather and we need to be smart and we need to conserve the energy for Saturday because that one is very important for us. Unfortunately for us the Celtic game did not allow me to rest players but we rested the captain (Hlompho Kekana) in the end because we need him for the City game and for Saturday,” said Mosimane, whose side had just knocked Phunya Sele Sele out of the MTN8.

Benni McCarthy and his team are in for a treat if Mosimane’s suggestion that his players are now fully ready for the season is anything to go by.

“We are in week six and that is good because if you are in week six, the next match is your start of the season and we should stop this thing of saying we are not ready. Now we are okay and we have improved our passing – we worked really hard in pre-season especially passing from the back and it looks good,” said Mosimane.

However, Mosimane is slightly unhappy about his side’s fluidity and he has told his more “talented” ball-players to be a little generous with the ball.

“When you have talented players they always want to show they are talented and then the ball comes to them they want to turn around and make a pass that is an unusual pass because he has got the talent and he wants to show it.

“I don’t want to kill the talent but somewhere, somehow I need a little bit of selflessness and humility to get the flow going. We will get there … You might have liked it (against Celtic) but I can see that it can be better with fluidity and sharpness in the box.

“We are not killing the game as easily as we would want to.” he admitted.

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