City stun Sundowns to deny them invincible tag

Cape Town City have denied an invincible season for Mamelodi Sundowns with a narrow 1-0 win at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday afternoon.

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Jaedin Rhodes scored the only goal of the game to hand the Brazilians their first defeat in the last game of the season.

Sundowns were attempting to do what no other South African football has done in the history of the PSL but Rhodes had other ideas.

Mothobi Mvala will be inconsolable after his mistake led to the 21-year-old’s goal in the second half. He tried to dibble from the back but Rhodes robbed him of possession to spoil the party at the traditional rugby venue.

Mvala will now be under scrutiny having also made another mistake in a high profile game during last season’s Caf Champions League semifinal against Wydad Casablanca. On that afternoon, he scored an own goal that knocked Sundowns out of the competition.

If the Sundowns faithful thought City were in Tshwane to play dead, they were quickly given a reality check. There was very little separating the two teams at the break with the visitors giving as good as they were getting.

The Citizens might have given Sundowns a guard of honour before the game started but the side from the Mother City were not about to hand Sundowns the invincible tag on a silver platter.

They put up a brave fight to deny the champions a chance to make history. They didn’t give Downs too much time on the ball and fought for every duel. 

Rulani Mokwena needed to remind his players what was at stake after a disjointed opening 45 minutes where they uncharacteristically struggled to string together passes and thus failed to create clear-cut chances.

The frustration was visible amongst the Sundowns players as Lebohang Maboe, Rivaldo Coetzee and Mvala were all booked with seven remaining in the first half. City lost midfielder Khanya Leshabela to a shoulder injury he sustained after 30 minutes.

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Mvala was caught napping on the ball by Rhodes who dispossessed to run through on goal to slot past the advancing Ronwen Williams in the 61^st minute and leave the home fans stunned.

Mokwena made a couple of changes with Teboho Mokoena, Matias Esuivel, Lucas Ribeiro, Junior Mendieta and Neo Maema all being introduced to try and maintain their unbeaten record but it was not to be.

Overall, it has been a brilliant season for Sundowns who captured their seventh successive DStv Premiership.

They will now turn their attention to next weekend’s Nedbank Cup final at the Mbombela Stadium against Orlando Pirates.