Pitso fires warning to title rivals
|Published
JOHANNESBURG – Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane fired a warning shot to teams eyeing the PSL title. Don’t let the Brazilians get close to you in the last five matches because they will finish stronger, Mosimane warned his rivals.
Sundowns are currently four points behind league leaders Kaizer Chiefs with a game in hand.
That game in hand is tomorrow’s clash with Orlando Pirates at Loftus.
A win over the Buccaneers would take Sundowns to within a point of Amakhosi with eight games to go, but Mosimane is willing to even get a point from tomorrow’s match as he looks at the bigger picture.
“We will have to try, as I have said we have to keep the league going because we can’t let the league (be) decided now like in the UK (English Premier League),” Mosimane said.
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane fired a warning shot to teams eyeing the PSL title. Photo: Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix
“We have to keep the league exciting. That’s why you are writing and talking about it. We have to keep it going until May. This thing, we cannot drop it. I remember last year when we were fighting for the league with Pirates, at this point in time we went to Morocco, we were seven points behind, and I think that they had played three or two games more than us.
“We managed to come back and win the league. But games in hand are a problem. You never know. You want to win and have three more points. But you must be clever and not be too emotional in the game of Orlando Pirates because sometimes if you get a point that could be enough."
“You remember the point that I sometimes say I must take it and you guys say I should have gone for (the) win? A point from Orlando Pirates is a big point. Trust me.
“Mathematically you might say otherwise, but get a point because the (other) people might not get it.”
Mosimane said this shortly after Sundowns reached the semi-finals of the Nedbank Cup on Saturday.
Sundowns have reached the semis of the Nedbank Cup and moved closer to Chiefs in the title race a week after being eliminated in the Champions League quarter-finals by Al Ahly.
But Sudowns’ big test will be against a Pirates team that beat them in the first round in Orlando.
“I am happy that at home we have been winning. I am waiting for the last five games because we will go five (wins) in a row. That one I can guarantee. The last five, we can win in a row,” Mosimane said.
But what makes Sundowns so strong in the final stretch of the season?
“It’s the mind,” Mosimane said. “We have the players. And we might not have (Gaston) Sirino (whose disciplinary matter hasn’t been finalised). You know when these things come.
“Last four or five games and it’s there. Why doesn’t it happen earlier? It’s waiting there, you will see it. It will come. I don’t know what (PSL prosecutor) Nande Becker wants to do. That guy, I don’t know. You know the story.
I don’t want to be in trouble. Let’s leave it to Becker, let Masandawana focus. I still believe that even if Sirino isn’t there we can do something.”