Shalulile credits teamwork for Sundowns victory in DR Congo

Peter Shalulile has shied away from taking all the glory for Mamelodi Sundowns’ hard-fought 2-1 win over AS Maniema Union in their penultimate game of the Caf Champions League group stages. 

The Namibian international came off the bench with Sundowns trailing 1-0 to put on a late show by equalising with seven minutes of regulation time left. Shalulile had a hand in the dramatic last-gasp winner which was an own goal by Maniema defender Exaucia Moanda. 

ALSO READ: Cardoso pleased with Sundowns fightback in victory over Maniema

The victory puts the Brazilians in a good position to advance to the quarterfinals of the biggest club competition on the African continent.

Sundowns will finish top of Group B if they get three points against against AS FAR in the last of the round robin stage on Sunday. A draw will also be enough for the Tshwane giants to progress alongside current leaders FAR to the knockout phase. 

“It was very difficult … it was humid … but I give credit to the guys,” Shalulile said to the club’s media team.

“They dug deep and they pushed and also Ronza (Ronwen Williams) made some saves. We needed to win because we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. 

“For us it’s about winning all our matches to get out of the group stages and we finally got our win and onto the next one ,which is on Sunday.”

Shalulile, who only played the last 10 minutes of the game, revealed how he was able to exploit weaknesses in Maniema’s defence shortly after his introduction at Stade de Martyrs.  

” It doesn’t matter how many minutes you get. As long as you make sure that you take advantage of those minutes so I did and we scored two,” he added. 

“It’s all about how they pushed up and I told Tebza (Teboho Mokoena) that the space was behind the defenders because every time we got the ball, they want to push up. Thats when I saw the space to attack. 

ALSO READ: Pirates beat Belouizdad to seal spot in Champions League quarterfinals

“The first one I headed (the ball in) and the second one, I saw Marcelo Allende and then I was at the shoulder of the defenders and I just went into space.”