Ahead of the 2025 CAF Champions League final between Mamelodi Sundowns and Pyramids FC, former defender Thabo Nthethe has reflected on Sundowns’ first star and how inspirational it was.
The Brazilians had been knocked out of the competition at the Last 16 round by AS Vita but the latter were later disqualified from the tournament after being found guilty of fielding an ineligible player.
Sundowns went on to lift the trophy that very season after beating Zamalek 3-1 on aggregate in the final. Since that victory Sundowns have not been in the final and are only making a return nine years later where they could be champions again.
Nthethe was part of the team that won the club’s first star and reminisced about that campaign – and how he and teammates had to cut their holidays short – with iDiski Times senior writer Matshelane Mamabolo in edition 205 of the newspaper.
Nthethe revealed how coach Pitso Mosimane was confident and motivated the mostly cynical group.
“Some of us had booked holidays, Coach Pitso [Mosimane] had said to us we could win the Champions League and told us we needed to believe,” Nthethe told IDiski Times.
“But there were some among us who laughed at him because they just did not believe we could. You know the backgrounds and environments we come from are not the same; some heights just seemed too big for others.
“I remember that when we came back into the competition after Vita were kicked out, some players were not happy because they had booked holidays and they were not going to be refunded. I started believing this was made for us, and so it proved.
“We went into the final as the underdogs, but that worked for us because even in the earlier matches, we were not given much chance. There were a lot of interviews, and there were even Egyptian journalists who came to Chloorkop, and we realised just how big a match it was.
“In the first leg, the plan was to win comfortably, and we did that – we beat them 3-0. So they had no chance, and the second leg was merely a formality. They beat us 1-0, but we’d done the job here.”
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