Mosimane wary of ‘good passing’ Celtic ahead of Cup final

Upon doing his analysis of Bloemfontein Celtic ahead of the Nedbank Cup final this Saturday night at the Orlando Stadium, one of the weapons that Pitso Mosimane will look to disarm John Maduka’s side is their slick passing of the ball.

READ: Celtic ‘soldier’ Mabena ready for war against Sundowns

The Mamelodi Sundowns coach said Celtic’s passing game is quite impressive and is aware if his side are to outclass the slick Phunya Sele Sele team, they will need to nullify their passing game.

Masandawana are chasing a domestic treble while Celtic will be looking to land the first piece of silverware since their last triumph in the Telkom Knockout about half-a-dozen years ago.

“Masokolara are a difficult team, those guys are enjoying themselves, they are a happy and free spirited team. They play good football and they pass well, I saw their game against Bidvest Wits… oh, they can pass the ball. They have nothing to lose but they will give everything, that’s how I see the game going,” said Mosimane.

Celtic coach John Maduka said he knew that his team would reach the final and he prepared them from the onset.

“Before we came into the bubble we knew that we are in the semifinal and our plan was to play nine games and that is seven games in the league plus two games of the cup, the semifinal and the final,” said Maduka.

“We were already mentally prepared before we came into the bubble, we knew that it might happen that we are the first to come into the bubble and we are the last to go out of the bubble. It happened exactly the way we prepared,” he added.

The Celtic mentor said while “Jingles” has picked up their passing game as one of the cardinals of their game, he will be banking on his side’s ability to score goals and defend as a unit.

“We always try our best to make sure that we are balanced and we defend as a team. Going forward is one of our strengths and we must be able to go forward and score goals. The games that we have played since we have been in the bubble have proved that. Our strikers have scored more than 10 goals in eight games so alone tells us a lot, we have been very good offensively,” he said.

Maduka adds: “We used to struggle defensively but now it has improved and we are so happy that we haven’t conceded more, like the way we did before the lockdown. There is much improvement and there is a balance defending wise and we will always try to use our strongest weapon in the game.”

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