Rulani Mokwena reveals Champions League group stage target
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Rulani Mokwena has revealed his team’s primary target in the CAF Champions League group stages.
Mokwena and his Sundowns troops kicked off their group stage campaign on a great note on Saturday afternoon at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium.
They narrowly defeated Sudanese giants Al-Hilal one nil courtesy of red-hot Cassius Mailula’s first-half strike. According to Mokwena they want to collect more points as early as possible.
This will make it easy for them to qualify for the knockout stages.
RULANI MOKWENA OUTLINES SUNDOWNS’ CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP STAGE GOAL
“First is to get three points, the target is to move as close as possible to 10 points. History tells you that the lowest number of points to come out of group stages is four,” Mokwena told the media.
“We want to try to get as close as possible to 10 points because that guarantees you more or less a position in the knockouts. Three points regardless of the scoreline very important and a good cleansheet.
“What it means [the victory] is that we can compete and we know we can. We just got to show consistency now, try to push to make sure get better.”
LACK OF SCORING OPPORTUNITIES
Despite a victory and a cleansheet at home, Mokwena was not an impressed man with their attack.
The mentor believes his charges didn’t create more goalscoring chances. However, performance-wise, Masandawana were brilliant.
“It could have been more, I think we scored a good goal for the second one, unfortunately it was judged offside,” he added.
“We could have scored more; we could’ve created more chances. We didn’t give a lot against a dangerous side on the counterattack.
“In certain moments we were very good, we played the game. We were comfortable even though we had a few jitters in certain moments, few misplaced passes but, I thought the boys were very good and applied themselves very well,” he added.
Up next for Masandawana is a tricky away match against Cameroon powerhouse Coton Sport FC de Garoua on Friday 17 February.
Kickoff at Roumde Adija Stadium is at 6pm [SA Time].
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