Sundowns add new technical team member to help the club with set-plays

Reigning DStv Premiership champions Mamelodi Sundowns do not only focus on building a strong squad of players, but they also put a lot of attention into their technical team, with the club announcing a new staff member – Michael Loftman – on Tuesday.

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Sundowns have a huge technical team which starts with three top coaches in the country led by Rulani Mokwena, with Steve Komphela as the first team coach and Manqoba Mngqithi as a senior coach.

The club also has goalkeeper coach Wendell Robinson, chief analyst Dale Sollomon, and now they have also included Loftman, who comes in as a set-play coach.

In their statement, the Brazilians revealed that bringing on Loftman to the club as a set-play coach is just another important aspect of the game where they want to improve.

“Mamelodi Sundowns has bolstered its Technical Team and football-department with the appointment of Michael Loftman as set play coach. The appointment was made in an effort to raise the bar including a specialist to the technical team. All elite sport is about gaining small margins. Replays and restarts are a significant part of modern-day football and are even more crucial when playing in the Caf Champions League,” read a statement from the club.

“Loftman, who has held various coaching roles as head coach and development coach, holds a Uefa-A license from the English FA and a Sports Science & Coaching Masters Degree from Brunel University. In his role, the experienced coach and performance data analyst will work on the pitch and compile analytic data to provide information to improve an important part of the game.”

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The Pretoria based team’s sporting director Flemming Berg is happy with the inclusion of Loftman and he believes he will add value to their technical team.

“We are very happy to have Michael and add his competencies to the experienced and highly qualified technical team,” he said.

The club also revealed that Loftman will travel with the team for their second Group B game of the Caf Champions League, where they will be taking on Coton Sport in Cameroon on Friday.