Will Sundowns’ bad boy behave in TKO final?

Sundowns captain Hlompho Kekana says both Gaston Sirino and his team-mates must take responsibility for the Uruguayan attacker’s short fuse, as he potentially returns from suspension for tomorrow’s Telkom Knockout final against Maritzburg United at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban.

READ: Sundowns players unhappy about Sirino’s behaviour

Sundowns’ midweek 3-1 win over Stellenbosch FC might have been a bit inconvenient for the Tshwane giants, coming as it did between a Caf Champions League match and the TKO final. But it does certainly benefit Sundowns, in the sense that Sirino has now served a two-match ban after the sending off he received last month.

“He knows that as a team we need him because we want to win a trophy… we want to try and manage his emotions more than anything because we all know that football is a game of emotions and once we get that right we stand a chance of doing well. We will try by all means to make him feel like he is one of us,” said Kekana.

“More than anything it is about how you manage your games and this time around we have learnt our lessons on how to manage the team. On Wednesday we saw the players who have not been playing so much, they came in and they did the business for us and we want to continue there and share the cake among everyone because we have so many games that we have to play so we have to share the load.”

The Team of Choice are enjoying quite a decent run of form and they won their last match in the league away to Polokwane City. Kekana says Masandawana cannot afford to take Eric Tinkler’s men lightly.

“Maritzburg are a very dangerous team at the moment, they are high on confidence which is something we should be concerned about. We must really go there with huge respect because they have done well for themselves. We just want to make sure that we contain some of their players and try to score goals.”

Kekana added: “We are trying so hard to stay focused on the mission and the goal of the team is to try and win trophies. We have learned over the years where we have used the same players in many games that we played and it backfired. But I hope on Saturday everybody who has rested comes in and takes the team where it is supposed to be.”

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