Legendary African coach Lamine Ndiaye has opened up on beating Mamelodi Sundowns with USM Alger as he described them as the best club on the continent.
Ndiaye, a former CAF Champions League winner with TP Mazembe, and a FIFA Club World Cup silver medallist has now won the Confederation Cup and Super Cup since his arrival at the Algerian club.
It marked the club’s second Super Cup title since 2023, when they also stunned then African champions Al Ahly – as the underdog prevailed once more.
“Sundowns is the best team in Africa, they have been so consistent and play very good football, but we came here not just to play, we play finals to win, we did that,” he said.
“We had our chances and scored, they couldn’t from their chances, the trophy means a lot for us and for the club.
“We played a 4-4-2 to try and stop Sundowns to play out from defence, we wanted to press them, but we had two players coming from injury who we couldn’t force them to press.
“We know they could lose the ball in midfield, and we try to capitalise on that transitions, we buried the chances we got.”
USMA will now go into the FIFA International break and return with the aim of a positive start in the CAF Confederation Cup group stage where they are in Group D with AS Bamako, Red Bulls and CS Sfaxien.