Maritzburg ready to nullify Sundowns’ ‘temperamental’ danger-man

The Team of Choice mentor has an idea of how “Jingles” is likely to line-up his team at the Moses Mabhida Stadium and Tinkler has singled out Downs’ Gaston Sirino as the most dangerous player.

READ: Will Sundowns’ bad boy behave in TKO final?

Not only will Tinkler’s men be looking to nullify Sirino from displaying his scintillating brand of football, Maritzburg will try to take advantage of the Uruguayan’s short temper that has already got him in hot water with the Premier Soccer League’s disciplinary committee.

“Sirino is temperamental and if we can try to use that to our advantage then we will. But he has got a lot of qualities and he has been the most influential player so far this season. Sirino is obviously one of the players who we have earmarked as one of the threats going forward,” said Tinkler.

“Pitso has a lot of depth and lots of options at his disposal and at the same time he has a habit of not changing a lot of his team. Looking at that game against Stellenbosch (Sundowns won 3-1 on Wednesday) he is taking the final seriously because he rested a lot of players,” Tinkler added.

While Tinkler branded Downs as the best team in the last six years, admitting that his team are underdogs, he does believe that United have what it takes to beat the Brazilians and claim their maiden top-flight trophy.

“We have got to have the belief that we can turn them over and it is very important to know that you are going to a massive battle because Sundowns are a team with very good footballers. Tactically we need to be well-prepared and if we are prepared to work for one another, we stand a good chance.

“When you are playing against a quality team like Sundowns you are going to get punished because of the strength that they have so you have to be prepared to work for 120 minutes non-stop and we have been reiterating that to the players.”

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.