Mamelodi Sundowns have started their CAF Champions League group stage campaign on a low note with two draws. But captain Ronwen Williams is hoping the slow start will motivate them to finish the tournament on a high.
The Brazilians will meet Moroccan giants, Raja Casablanca, in a group B clash in Pretoria on Sunday.
Despite opening their CAF Champions League group stage campaign with two draws, Sundowns are sitting in second place behind Moroccans AS Far.
In the previous campaigns, the Brazilians were usually arguably the best team in the group stages, only to implode in the knockout stages. And captain Ronwen Williams is hoping for a stronger finish in the tournament this season.
“We know we haven’t had a good start but maybe we need a different approach compared to the seasons before, whereby this stage we will have six points but the further we go in the competition we start dropping but maybe this season it will work in our favour where we start slow and start picking up points,”
The Brazilians had a change of coach this week when they replaced Manqoba Mngqithi with Miguel Cardoso. The Portugal native is expected to hit the ground running with a win against Raja on Sunday to get the Brazilians’ campaign back on track.
“Since the first moment we arrived in the club our clear intention was to put everyone in the same line of thought so that on Sunday, we can express the level of the game we need in order to get the three points, win and move forward in the group,” says Cardoso.
Since the Patrice Motsepe era, no foreign coach has succeeded at Sundowns including top-name coaches such as Henri Michel, Hristo Stoichkov and Johan Neeskens. But Cardoso is hoping to buck the trend and write his own history.
“I didn’t know that, But I also know that no foreign coach ever reached the Champions League final in Tunisia. No one ever won 8-0 in a match, but we did it. No one ever had ball possession like us in the CAF Champions League group stage match against Asec Mimosa, but we did it. I don’t think about what happened in the past I think about the future.”
Meanwhile, Williams has been nominated for some of CAF’s top awards. He’s on the shortlist in the Player of the Year category, the Inter-Club Player of the Year, and the Goalkeeper of the Year Award.
“I am just happy that I am representing South Africa, hopefully, I can inspire the next and current generations to dream big, here is someone who didn’t always have it smooth but who is nominated with the best keepers in the world and now in Africa, this must open doors for others to dream big and even go on and win it,” Williams added.
Sundowns-Raja match will take place at Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria at 3 pm on Sunday.
