Johannesburg - Such has to be the devastating effects of their failure to reach the CAF Champions League final, that you’d think the Mamelodi Sundowns players would need the entire off-season to recover and get back to the impressive winning ways that had made them favourites to win this year’s campaign.
But Rhulani Mokwena believes that he did enough in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s costly 2-2 draw with Wydad Athletic Club, to help his team come to terms with the exit. The result saw the Brazilians knocked out via the away-goal rule, their participation in the competition ending despite the side having not lost a single match.
“The players know I love them more actually today. We go through these mistakes together, that’s why I am here and that’s why the club has entrusted me with the responsibility,” Mokwena said in the post-match media conference.
“It’s not so much in the good moments (that he has to show leadership); it is actually in the bad moments. I’ve got to step up, first take responsibility and then try to allow the players to feel it, because if we could feel it - the pain - it will take us to the next level.”
There was no denying they felt the pain alright, the majority of the Sundowns players crying inconsolably while others lay sprawled on the pitch in agony at the end of the match – their exit evidently hard for them to handle.
Later on when they acknowledged their fans – who themselves had failed to deal with Wydad’s second goal as they sat eerily quiet and failed to respond to pleas from the stadium announcer to inspire the team with song – the players appeared to simply be going through the motions.
They applauded and sang with the fans, but they looked like they would rather be off that pitch and in the dressing room crying their sorrows.
But their coach believes they will be all the better for it: “We have got to feel it and this group knows today that I love them more today, than when we won the championships two weeks ago.”
The one player who would have felt that love the most is defender Mthobi Mvala who scored the own goal that saw Wydad pegging Sundowns back a second time in the match.
Themba Zwane had given Sundowns the lead five minutes into the second half but Ayoub El Amloud equalised for the visitors on 71 minutes. The home side restored their lead via Peter Shalulile shortly thereafter, only for Mvala to head into his own net.
Asked what it was that he said to the defender, Mokwena responded that words were not the way to go.
“What did I say to Mthobi? If anything, in moments like this – there’s two things. One, they say those who don’t make mistakes are those that are probably not doing anything at all. Two, I don’t think he is prepared to listen to the coach at this moment. But he felt the coach’s love; I can definitely assure you of that. I pulled the hand firmly and pulled the body a lot closer and I gave him the reassurance that he is not alone. And that for me, is probably far more important than the words I could have uttered.”
Mokwena and Sundowns are perhaps fortunate that the Champions League failure comes at the end of the season, and thus its effects have no chance to have further damage. And he believes they’ll be ‘all the better for the pain’.
@Tshiliboy
IOL Sport