Steve Komphela, Rulani Mokwena and Manqoba Mnqgithi during the MTN8 quarter final between Mamelodi Sundowns and Bloemfontein Celtic at the Moripe Stadium.(Photo by Samuel Shivambu/ Backpagepix/ Gallo Images)
Mamelodi Sundowns co-head coach Rulani Mokwena says he and his technical team have studied AmaZulu from top to bottom and have prepared to stop their attack from all angles when they meet on Sunday afternoon.
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Mokwena is of the view that Usuthu will become one of the teams to watch this season and has tipped the KwaZulu-Natal side to thrive under new management.
“AmaZulu come into the match with lots of confidence because they beat Black Leopards convincingly with a dominant and a very strong performance. They have signed some very good players and qualitatively they have got a lot to offer, so we should expect a very competitive AmaZulu this season,” said Mokwena.
“They will come into the match expecting to win because even against Orlando Pirates, the performance was good and against TS Galaxy they played extremely well, so they are in a very good space and we have to be humble when approaching the match,” he added.
Mokwena has tipped players like Luvuyo Memela and Augustine Mulenga as the danger men but is confident that they can keep them quiet as he knows their weaknesses from the time he coached them at Pirates.
“They have Memela and he is very smart, he knows his thing, he is very intelligent and he is an important player for them with or without the ball. When they have the ball they build from the back, Mario Booysen is comfortable on the ball and he can play with both feet, they have got good full-backs who are aggressive going forward.
“Xola Mlambo has been one of their most important signings. Against Leopards he was very good, he initiated a lot of attacks for them and good key passes that created possibilities to advance their attack. Lehlohonolo Majoro and Memela invert and they come in to play close to Mulenga, who is very dangerous also. He is a big threat because he can threaten you behind your defensive line and in front, so we have to work on certain things,” Mokwena said.
He added: “They have got certain weaknesses that we have identified in their game and hopefully we can use the individual weaknesses that we know because we have got a lot of intel on Xola, Mulenga and Memela, and also Mario because he played for us. Hopefully we can exploit and manage the game and play it the way we want it to be played.”
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