Mamelodi Sundowns co head coach Rulani Mokwena commended his players for being able to switch tactics in the second half as they beat Orlando Pirates 4-1 on Friday night, while praising the work done behind-the-scenes by Steve Komphela.
Sundowns went four up before Pirates scored a consolation goal in stoppage time.
Mokwena said Pirates gave them a tough time in the second half, but he was pleased with how the team adapted to the change of tactic in the second half.
He also praised the work done by Steve Komphela on the team’s set pieces, as three of their goals came from dead ball situations.
“Ja, compliments to Pirates for the start,” Mokwena said to SuperSport after the game.
“It was clear that they worked very hard on their schemes. They pressed us well in the first couple of minutes, and they built up very well with the one ball that came through for Ben and our midfield was a little bit too far out.
“And it was the first time they did that build up because we watch their games and normally they don’t engage with the central midfielders, but we spotted that, we worked a little bit hard on it and their structure also gave us a couple of problems because they play a little bit awkward, and they are comfortable with doing that, because they play that way every single day.
“And it works for them when Paseka inverts a little bit and he becomes the third center back and Hotto becomes the wing back. And then when Hotto becomes the wing back they look to overload the midfield with Neverdie, with Lorch and then it’s got a box in the midfield so we had problems dealing with the four versus two, especially when they did go short.
“It was better for us when we forced them to go long. And then we could deal with only the two that is engaging the striker. But when they play, there’s a four across and then to press, it becomes like a rondo, so we struggled a little bit.
“But on the second half we changed things a little bit. We pushed our fullbacks a little bit higher so that we could draw their fullbacks out and because we could do that, then we could overload a little bit the center halves and the players did very, very well tactically to adapt to the instructions at halftime.
“We’ve just got very, very good players who listen and who are coachable, who are humble and you can see that again also if you look at who scored the goals. Pavol scored, we were a little bit unfair to him in the previous match, we took him off. But no sulking, no attitude, he comes back and and gets an opportunity and does the job.
“But I’ve got also reserve credit, one to Steve Komphela, because he’s been working very, very hard on the set pieces. Every time we do the technical work, Steve takes the players and they do a bit more of the set pieces, and it was good to see that we scored the three goals so it’s huge, huge, huge credit to coach Steve and the analysts for the work that they did in relation to the set pieces.”
