Though numerous international soccer commentators and experts have heaped lavish praise on Mamelodi Sundowns regarding its performance at the Club World Cup tournament in the USA, my take is that the said praise is undue and should therefore be retracted.
The said praise, dear soccer lover, is akin to the Shakespearean “tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.”
The said praise is more or less in the same league as the praise which is lavished on the South African Constitution by international figures even when the majority of the citizens in the country presently have doubts about certain sections of it.
Sundowns is like an Emperor in the fairytale written by Hans Christian Andersen (1837) wherein this supreme ruler of the land is duped by some swindlers masquerading as weavers into believing that the clothes they have knitted for him were the best in the land while in actual fact there were no clothes whatsoever that had been knitted by the swindlers for the Emperor; and that the Emperor was actually stark naked.
When last did Sundowns win a crucial match?
Please don’t tell me about their last PSL game against Magesi at Loftus Stadium because that was a “dead rubber” game and also don’t tell me that they beat Ulsan who hail from a lowly-rated league in South Korea and are the whipping boys in the group.
What I am driving at here is that Sundowns are perennial losers when coming to high-stake matches.
For Aserne Wenger and Didier Drogba to tout them as the best team in Africa is a lie, finish en klaar!
The best team in Africa at the moment is Pyramids of Egypt which is ably led upfront by lone striker Fiston Kalala Mayela.
Those Sundowns defenders, including their goalkeeper Ronwen Williams are not comfortable on the ball; they can’t build from the back contrary to what their fans would like us to believe.
The person who is very comfortable on the ball and stylish in the Sundowns defence is reserve goalkeeper Jody February.
In the Nedbank semifinal game against Chiefs, jittery Downs defender Lucas Suarez literally passed the ball to a Chiefs player who in turn passed the ball to his teammate to score.
In the CAF Champions League final match against Pyramids, an absent-minded Grant Kekana passed the ball to the deadly Mayela who paid him back by slotting the ball into the Sundowns net.
In the second round League match against Pirates at Orlando Stadium, Downs left-back Aubrey Modiba irresponsibly passed the ball to Evidence Makgopa, who obliged by passing the ball to Relebogile Mofokeng to score.
In the recent Club World Cup tournament in the USA, out-of-sorts goalkeeper Ronwen Williams embarrassed himself and all Sundowns players and fans by passing the ball to a Dortmund player who subsequently punished him for this “unforgivable sin” by putting the ball into the Downs’ empty net; leaving Williams sprawled on the turf like an immobile patient.
What I have realised is that Sundowns concedes many goals from the left side of their defence whereby opponents are allowed to cross the ball into the Downs penalty area for clinical strikers to do the obvious thing against the helpless keeper Williams.
Upfront Peter Shalulile is hopelessly unskilled because he can’t even push or juggle the ball forward and always plays one-touch football even in situations where he should first trap the ball and make a decent pass.
His co-striker Iqraam Rayners first has to miss five goals before scoring one lucky goal.
Now with a team replete with so many weaknesses and glaring blunders, would Sundowns supporters still insist that their team is the best?
What I have also discovered is that those Sundowns defenders are slow and very old in terms of football age.
Goalkeeper Williams is 33 years old; Lucas Suarez is 30 years old; Aubrey Modiba is 30 years old and veteran Grant Kekana is 33 years old while injury-prone Mothobi Mvala is 31 years old.
Please Masandawana, stop making a noise and fix your team.
I rest my case!