Royal AM coach John Maduka is looking forward to the challenge of facing Mamelodi Sundowns in the Nedbank Cup semifinals after his side scraped past University of Pretoria in a five-goal thriller at Chatsworth Stadium on Sunday.
The semifinal final tie will be much-anticipated between the two form teams in the country and for Maduka there will be an element of revenge. He was in charge of Bloemfontein Celtic when Sundowns beat them 1-0 in the 2020 Nedbank Cup final, and then later that year the decider in the MTN8.
"We're looking forward to it," Maduka said. "It's a good one. We know it's not going to be easy. I think it doesn't matter who we play against in the semifinals, anything can happen.
“And it's our home game. We will prepare well; we are going to compete and try to take us into the final. I am sure it is going to be a very interesting match, we just hope on that particular day the [weather] conditions and the condition of the field is good.”
Royal AM came back from 2-0 down to beat AmaTuks 3-2 in treacherous conditions after heavy rain left water on the surface of the pitch.
The team have built a reputation this season for scoring late goals and Maduka said he always believed they would make a comeback in the game after trailing 2-0 at halftime.
"We knew we would come back, we started the game very slow and it was expected because we were coming from back-to-back games. We knew we would start picking it up.”