Ahead of their CAF Champions League Group Stages match away against Al Hilal on Saturday, Rulani Mokwena has pointed out the danger men at the Sudanese club.
Sundowns, who have already qualified for the knockout stages after Al Ahly’s win on Friday, are top of Group A on ten points, six points ahead of Al Hilal.
Mokwena says their back-to-back victories over Al Ahly in their previous games have no bearing on this game and says Al Hilal deserve their respect.
He singled out four players in the Al Hilal side who could cause them problems.
“The past performances against Al Ahly actually have very little bearing on tomorrow’s match,” Mokwena said in the pre-match press conference
“Al Hilal are a strong team and they deserve all our respect. You can see that from a statistical perspective they dominated both Al Merrikh and Al Ahly at home. In our group they lead in relation to shots at goal, big chances created.
“Clever players that can hurt you on transition which is a big threat, Abdelrahman Mustafa, the number 20, quick and aggressive, and get into your box very quickly.
“Ajagun and Gerald Phiri are also very important for them in the midfield. Abdullah, the fullback on the left is very aggressive, puts crosses into the box.
“So ja, it’s an interesting game and an interesting opposition that can really hurt us, so without 100% focus and respect, we have no chance.”
Mokwena said Al Hilal has been quite consistent in the group stages.
“f you look at Al Hilal’s journey in the in the group stages from a tactical perspective, they’ve been quite consistent,” he continued
“Out of the four games in three matches they’ve been quite consistent to the 4231. And in the last game against Al Merrikh, they changed the structure a little bit. They went more for a 4-4-2 diamond shape with two strikers Abdulrahman and Mustapha up on top.
“And that helped them get a very important goal. If you look at how the goal comes in the 83rd or 84th minute of the game against Al Merrikh, you see clearly the benefits of having two strikers and a ten in the attack
“But in the other games, they had the one striker and then very aggressive wingers coming in, in a 4231, with a little bit more conservative control of the midfield.
“But they’re a team that looks to build from the back. They’re a team that that looks to press from the top. They’re a team that wants to dominate possession and play well. They’re a team that hasn’t changed much because last year when we played them it was a similar profile and maybe that’s because of the Portuguese influence in the team.
“So from the last few years they’ve had very good coaches who have structured the team very, very well. But of course, they are under pressure, they need to win and it’s not going to be easy to win against us.
“Because regardless of whether we played at nine or three o’clock, we still have to play the game, and at Sundowns we play to dominate the ball. We want to dominate the pitch, and we play to win.”
