Sundowns’ Mngqithi on why Saavedra will not be like Affonso

Mamelodi Sundowns coaches are adamant that the situation of their former striker, Maurico Affonso will not happen again with their new signing Erwin Saavedra, who joined the club about three months ago.

The Bolivia-born forward has spent more time in the casualty ward than he did on the pitch as he only turned out three times for Masandawana across all competitions this season.

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Saavedra is highly rated and coming from South America – a region that former Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane once described as a “gold mine” – a lot is expected from him but his injury has left the Downs faithful wondering if they will ever get to see if he can live up to his billing.

Saavedra suffered an injury in a Caf Champions League group stage game against Al-Hilal Omdurman and he picked up another one in training just as he was about to reach full fitness.

“He’s definitely going to play many matches for us. The injury that he got when we played Al-Hilal was taken for granted by all of us because we thought he was going to recover quickly but unfortunately it has taken a bit of time,” said his coach Manqoba Mngqithi.  

“He is back in full training now but we are just worried that he has lost a lot of time in terms of training and we don’t want to have him relapse. If he gets a chance to play (in the Nedbank Cup final) it would be good but if he does not play, it will not be a train smash,” he said.

Mngqithi added: “He started training with the team but we are just not too sure if it is going to be a good idea to rope him in and risk a possibility of him getting injured again.

“We have time to prepare him properly because he came to us without an injury and we are optimistic that he is going to play many matches. Rest assured that we have got a very good player.”  

In about 260 professional league games, the 26-year-old has close to 50 goals to his name.