Mamelodi Sundowns co head coach Rulani Mokwena says their first objective is to qualify from the CAF Champions League group stages.
Sundowns played to a goalless draw away against Al Merrikh on Saturday, a result that sees them topping Group A with four points, with all three other teams on one point. Like Sundowns, Al Hilal have played two games, while Merrikh and Sundowns’ next opponents, Al-Ahly, have only played one game.
Mokwena says they have certain objectives to achieve to qualify, and they are working hard to keep improving.
Up next is Pitso Mosimane’s Al Ahly, but no matter the results against the Egyptian giants, Mokwena says getting results against the Sudanese teams is as important.
“We will have to fight for the other points from Al Hilal and Al Merrikh, and we’ve gotta give them the same amount of respect that you would give in terms of the preparations and attention to detail that you would give to Al Ahly,” Mokwena said after the draw with Al Merrikh.
“Everyone was disappointed when we only beat Al-Hilal 1-0, but if you look at the Al Ahly game against Al-Hilal, when they draw you realize how important it was to win that match and we cannot be blinded by playing the name instead of playing the matches.
“We’ve got matches to play and certain objectives to reach, and we know that the first objective is to qualify from the group and be in the knockouts.
“To be in the knockouts means that we play every single match, including today’s match. Before we even speak about Al Ahly and the next match we focus on trying to analyse the previous match, and try to see why we could not win it and then try to train and improve.
“In South Africa when we kept saying that we are still a team that is working very hard to get better, people were thinking that we were being modest and humble, but that was just the reality, when people see the performances now and they see where we are, people try to make a lot of noise about it.”
