Mngqithi savours Sundowns’ title-clinching derby victory

Mamelodi Sundowns co-head coach Manqoba Mngqithi could not hide his joy at clinching the championship at the expense of  rivals SuperSport United, who they beat 3-1 on Wednesday night to continue enforcing their unparalleled dominance in the division.

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“We wanted to win the championship from this match .. it is always nicer when you win the derby and you win the championship,” said Mngqithi.

“The first championship that we won with coach Pitso Mosimane (2013/14) was in the same Loftus Versfeld Stadium, we were playing against SuperSport and we wanted to replicate that and win it in the derby …. it gives you a little bit of pride.

“The plan is always to try and win the next match because as a team we try to create our own benchmarks. We would have loved to go beyond the 71 points that we got in one of the championships but now we can only go as far as 69 points and that is what we will be pushing for,” he added, indicating Sundowns still want to focus on winning their last three games of the season.

The next three matches are against Swallows, starting on Saturday before they travel to Bloemfontein Celtic in the penultimate round, then conclude the season at home against Cape Town City where they will be presented with the inaugural DStv Premiership trophy. Mngqithi did also allude to the possibility of giving some fringe players an opportunity.

“We will try to give other players a chance to play, but I do not want to promise much because we do not want to lose … anything. We have a responsibility towards the last cycle of matches that we are supposed to play. Every match that we play, we play to win … we don’t want to risk the possibility of losing matches,” said the Downs mentor.