Mamelodi Sundowns coach Rulani Mokwena has explained why he believes the club’s budding star Cassius Mailula is fortunate to have a coach like him.
Mailula scored the first of three goals as Sundowns thrashed AmaZuliu 3-0 in the first semifinal of the Carling Cup at FNB Stadium in Soweto.
MAILULA HAS POTENTIAL
However, Mailula, who is 21, missed several golden scoring opportunities due to lack of composure and experience.
Mokwena is of the view that Mailula has the potential to reach great heights and has likened him to Percy Tau.
Tau came through the hands of Mokwena in the Sundowns development and went on to compete overseas for Brighton.
While in Belgium, the Bafana Bafana star featured in the Uefa Champions League.
Mailula has been tipped as the next big star with Mokwena backing him to shine at Sundowns.
“I am fortunate to work with a player like Cassius that’s got so much potential,” Mokwena told the media.
“But also, I think Cassius is fortunate to have a coach that has a very strong background with working with young players.
“My background is having come from Silver Stars at that time in the youth set up. I work at Black Poison with youngsters all the time, Sundowns, with the youth and probably worked with players of similar quality, your Percy Taus, the late Motjeka Madisha, Khaya Shozi.
“So when I see what I see from Cassius, it is nothing new. I speak to him, and I ask him what does he thinks he needs from me to be able to do better in those types of situations.”
Mokwena also stated that he had a chat with Mailula at half time, revealing what he told the young attacker.
“At half-time, what I said to him, there is something called the next ball in basketball. In basketball, you hear coaches speak about the next action because of the intensity of the game,” explained the Sundowns coach.
FLUSH IT OUT
“And what can happen very easily with football players is that you can have one bad action and if you don’t flush it out of your mind, it leads to another bad action and eventually you have a sequence of bad actions and then that results in a bad performance.
“So, one bad action should not ever reflect the performance, it should be one bad action. You are human, you are going to make mistakes, I make more mistakes than any of my players and I’m still going to make those mistakes.
“But one thing about myself and my mentality is that after that mistake, I try to learn from it and get better and that’s exactly what I said to Cassius.
“He’s too young to carry one bad action into the next ball, he has to be able to say ‘okay one bad action, flush it out, and lets move on and don’t allow that action to then start to represent the entire performance.”
