Mind games over officiating continues ahead of MTN8 final

To say the officiating in the PSL has been poor this season would be an understatement. Fans and commentators are up in arms over some questionable refereeing decisions, especially in big games.

All eyes will be on the man in the middle during Saturday’s MTN8 final between Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns at Moses Mabhida Stadium.

Whether it’s mind games or not, both teams have played their part in putting the spotlight on whoever will be in charge of the game.

Sundowns assistant coach Manqoba Mngqithi and his Pirates counterpart Sergio Almenara stoked the fires again before the much-anticipated game.

This comes after The Brazilians’ head coach Rulani Mokwena lit the first firecracker by claiming that his players suffer severe injuries whenever they clash against the Buccaneers.

The comments clearly irked Jose Riveiro’s second in command who addressed the media in Durban.

“I think this is not the right time in my opinion to talk about referees,” said Almenara while referring to his own notes of their opponent’s transgressions from a recent DStv Premiership encounter.

“There are other channels and we’re not the ones to talk but we can talk about data if you want. The data says that the last game we played against Sundowns, they committed 24 fouls and Pirates committed six.

“The data also says that Sundowns’ average of fouls per game is almost 17, so it’s (in) the top two in both PSL and MTN8.

“In a possession-based team, you should calculate how much time they are out of possession and divide it by the number of fouls they are committing.”

Palpable tension

The tension was palpable with the two assistant coaches sitting next to each other. Mngqithi responded in a rather sarcastic tone while steering clear of the burning topic.

“Personally, I’m not someone who wants to talk about referees. Whatever coach Rulani has said I think it was coming from him,” he said.

“The coach here is also saying that we are  averaging quite a number of fouls per match and to be honest I’m not surprised. We play a very high octane game and most of those fouls are maybe from counter-pressing.

“We have not harmed any opposition with those fouls. Those are fouls just to make sure that we don’t lose our balance as a team and that we are in a better shape and we are able to deal with counter-attacks.

“They are not fouls that you can write home about to say we nearly broke someone’s (leg). The truth of the matter is that the nature of the game that we play requires that we must do what we have to make sure that we are not exposed on counter-attacks.”