Former Mamelodi Sundowns winger Keagan Dolly has explained a major challenge of playing for the club where the expectations is to always win the league.
Sundowns moved back to the top of the table by three points after their 2-0 win over ORBIT College, but Orlando Pirates claimed their summit spot back after a 2-0 win over Richards Bay with a one goal plus difference.
Masandawana had a few shaky weeks and questions around their title defence as they chase a ninth consecutive crown but appear to have hit form at the right time, with the club now winning seven consecutive league outings.
But Dolly, who won the league and CAF Champions League at the club before dream move to France with Montpellier back in 2017 before returning home in 2021 with Kaizer Chiefs, TS Galaxy and now Cape Town City had shed light on the biggest challenge.
“Playing for Sundowns, no game is easy, every team has a point to prove, especially in the second round [of the league], everyone has something to play for, nobody wants to lose, and none more so coming to you, playing a team that’s been dominating,” Dolly said on the Pitchside Podcast.
“Teams wanna prove themselves and not want to lose – for us, coming up with situations and solutions at training, we knew what to expect, we had to know how to deal with these low blocks and how to be patient over 90 minutes. Maybe 60 minutes we’ll be on the ball.
“But you have to be patient enough to know when to make the deep pass, make that deep run, I think we had the players who understand, we had a lot of experience in the team, like skipper [Hlompho Kekana], people who can take shots from far.
“They the ones who add the pressure, the current team has that as well with uTebza [Mokoena] who can score from anywhere, Allende is showing himself as well, so there are these players that can help the team in situations like this and I feel like it’s going to be an interesting second round.”
Hlompho Kekana, the club legend who played alongside Dolly during that glittering era of the famed ‘CBD’ of Leonardo Castro, Khama Billiat and Keagan Dolly echoed the sentiments; “The best way to go about it, is to try and score early.
“Once you score early, their plan is out of the window, then they have to come up with a second plan which they have never trained for, half of the time. But the team has grown in this, with the momentum that they are carrying, they are looking to kill matches early.
“They are realising in the second half there’s no longer those fluid games where teams come at you trying to turn your last line in defence, they are happy to sit and trying not to concede early or the first half, once they get that, they have won [something] because then the second half is about killing the match. But scoring early helps and relieves pressure.”
The duo were speaking with host DJ Naves after the media launch event of the Mamelodi Sundowns Soccer Schools in Cape Town this past weekend.
Did you know that the iDiski Times Digital Newspaper is completely free! Download it now by clicking the button below or fill in the form to have it sent to you every week.
