Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi has lauded Kaizer Chiefs for their performance against his team, saying they deserved the point they earned in that game.
Chiefs and Sundowns played to a 1-1 draw in a thrilling DStv Premiership encounter at the FNB Stadium on Sunday. Aubrey Modiba scored the opening goal for the Brazilians and Phathutshedzo Nange grabbed the equaliser for Amakhosi.
“It has been such a long time since I last saw such an interesting match between Chiefs and Sundowns. [It was] a very very good game of football, both teams [were] willing to take some risks at some times, expose a few moments with some poor rest defense. [In the] first half they set up very good pressing traps in the middle, a very good first half in our opinion, but unfortunately not so many chances created in the process,” said Mngqithi.
“In the second half we came back a little bit stronger, I think the double wide of Divine [Lunga] and Aubrey [Modiba] caused them a little bit more problems because now they had to try and overload the balls to the side, more especially on the left and that created a little bit more chances. But we lost the wing play that we had in the first half because in the first half they were opening the wide channels a lot, but in the second half I think they improved in that aspect and gave us very little time and space to exploit those openings.”
“I believe Chiefs played very well, and I did say in prior to this match that the last three to four matches that they’ve played I was very impressed because they played the type of football that I can guarantee can easily bring the supporters back into the stadium, because it’s a gallant performance with a lot of passes, creativity, intrigant play and good counter pressing moments. Chiefs are always very dangerous in transition, but also it’s not nice for a big team like Chiefs to depend on transition and set-pieces only.” added Mngqithi.
“My overall assessment I think it was a very good game of football for spectators to watch, maybe a game that was short of goals because we did not score many goals and I also believe the penalty they got was a legitimate in my opinion, but I also think we also deserved either a penalty or a freekick. I would think they deserved a point today, they deserved not to lose to be honest. I think they played very well with a lot of courage from the ball, not too many aimless long balls, I think maybe only from the goal kicks looking to [Leonardo] Castro to establish play from there, but it was a very good match,” concluded the Sundowns mentor.
Sundowns will next host Stellenbosch FC at home on Saturday.
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