Mngqithi clears air on ‘fight’ incident that led to Mokwena’s red card

Mamelodi Sundowns scored a dramatic late goal to earn a rare away win at Al Ahly in Caf Champions League match on Saturday night.

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The game – termed African Derby because of the anticipation it had built up – lived up to expectation. 

Dramatic scenes were aplenty and in one of them Sundowns’ co-coach Rulani Mokwena was sent off after a verbal sparring with the referee. Manqoba Mngqithi has since explained what happened that led to this unexpected scene. 

“To be honest we were not fighting with the referees as such,” said Mngqithi after the match. “But the referee presumed that our goalkeeper (Kennedy Mweene) was wasting time. 

“The truth was that he was fouled and we tried to clear the ball out so he could get attention. But they did not allow the ball out and continued to play when they could see the goalkeeper was down. We were not faking it, we were not trying to waste time. We hardly do that.

“And that is basically what made us talk to try and conscientise them that we are not trying to waste time but are rather concerned that our keeper was injured,” said Mngqithi. 

He however could not be dragged into commenting about the level of refereeing, saying they are also human beings and therefore are naturally fallible.  

“With the refereeing, you never want to say whether you are happy with it or not.  But the truth is that they are also human beings and they make mistakes sometimes. We have to accept when they have made mistakes and forgive because it is the nature of the game of football… Today it might favour you, tomorrow it might favour someone else. They are human beings and we don’t want to kill that human factor in football.”

The three points earned by Masandawana through Thapelo Morena’s 86th minute goal puts them on solid ground in Group A.

They are now on seven points off three games. Hot on their heels are El Merreikh with four while Al Ahly are third with just one. 

Al Hihal are fourth also with one point off three games. Al Ahly and El Merreikh however have a game in hand.   

Mngqithi believes they can go all the way and clinch their second Caf Champions League title.

“Even last year we believed we had a team who could win it. We were training a team who we also knew had the capacity to win. And also Al Ahly has played a lot of matches and that’s why we had to drag the game a little bit and make sure they don’t get an early goat because we knew they might tire down in the later stages of the game and we could hurt them. 

“That’s what we did. We anticipated what they might bring and we were confident that the team we have has the capacity because we were still unhappy with what happened last. Even then we believed we should have won.”