Tuesday, February 18, 2025
HomeWomen's Football'We Want Sundowns To Be The Best Team In The World'

‘We Want Sundowns To Be The Best Team In The World’

After conquering Africa, Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies head coach Jerry Tshabalala has revealed his ambitious target of turning his side in the best team in the world.

Sundowns returned from their triumphant CAF Women’s Champions League campaign on Tuesday after winning the title for the second time in three years and this time without conceding a single goal.

The club also dominated the podium with individual awards that went to Andile Dlamini as Goalkeeper of the Tournament, Boitumelo Rabale as Player of the Tournament, Refilwe Tholakele with the Golden Boot for her five goals, while the club also bagged the fair play award.

The side is also on course to seal their third successive Hollywoodbets Super League title with their remaining matches after their nearest rivals University of Western Cape (UWC) dropped points while Sundowns was away in the Ivory Coast.

After lifting the CAFCL trophy Tshabalala told the story of what his ambitions were when he first got the job, initially wanting to make Banyana Ba Style the best side in Africa, but now the targets are higher and he wants his girls to test themselves against the best in the world and that would be assisted by the introduction of the FIFA Women’s Club World Cup.

“When I first started at Mamelodi Sundowns, you know jokingly the late Mxolisi, may his soul rest in peace, he said ‘coach, you are hired at Mamelodi Sundowns what are you going to do’,” said Tshabalala.

“I answered Mxolisi and I said ‘Mxolisi, I want to make Mamelodi Sundowns one of the best teams in Africa’.

“Here we are today, we are one of the best teams in Africa but like I said we want to go out there and be the best team in the world.

“As I speak to you now we are ranked number 25 in the entire world. So we can’t wait for FIFA to just announce and say ‘hey, here is a Club World Cup’, so we can give ourselves a shot and see how far are we in terms of competing with other continents in terms of your Europe, Asia and all that.

“But back then, it was a dream of making Mamelodi Sundowns a super power in Africa but now the dream has grown bigger to make Mamelodi Sundowns the best team in the world.”

Sundowns face Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) in their first league match since returning from the Champions League at the Lucas Moripe Stadium this afternoon.

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