Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi was surprisingly unhappy that his side did not deliver a more emphatic scoreline than their 4-0 drubbing of Kaizer Chiefs in Saturday’s Carling Knockout quarterfinal at Soccer City.
Iqraam Rayners had Sundowns 2-0 midway through the first half with Peter Shalulile and Khuliso Mudau adding two more goals while Lucas Ribeiro struck the crossbar with an effort from outside the box in a one-sided victory.
“First, I think we started well and it became quite clear our pressing scheme made it difficult for them to build from the back and forced them into playing long balls,” said the Sundowns coach in his analysis of the game.
“We created a lot of good situations from our high press. In some instances, we managed to steal some balls. But I was not happy that we did not capitalise on those situations.
“I think our game plan on the day was very good. And I would like to thank my fellow coaches, my analysts and everybody that is surrounding the team. I think it was a very good plan and it came out the right way. The only thing that I would still feel uncomfortable about is I think we could have scored a lot of goals.
“And personally, I am that kind of a coach who fell in love with football because I like a team that scores more and I think we messed around a lot of good situations. “Nonetheless, it was a good performance, and we knew we were playing against a big team, we're not playing against a small team. We knew it's not going to always favour us. They will have their moments, but I think we tried to minimise their moments as much as we could, which gave us a little bit of an upper hand,” he added.
The Brazilians come out on top at FNB Stadium after netting 4 and keeping a clean sheet! Onto the semis we go!🔥
— Mamelodi Sundowns FC (@Masandawana) November 2, 2024
Kaizer Chiefs 0️⃣➖4️⃣ Mamelodi Sundowns (13', 21' Rayners, 39' Shalulile, 60' Mudau)#Sundowns #CarlingKnockout #RabatsenaGape pic.twitter.com/2TkbJKcV6A
But Mngqithi had visions of a more crushing victory with Chiefs’ only one goal away from their record loss.
“I think the level of the game did not reach my expectations, and I'm coming out of the game a very unhappy person, because I think we could have done better. I think we committed a lot of silly mistakes when we could have just terminated the attack and maybe passed to someone to finish with an open net.
“So I would not rank this match very high in terms of the quality of football that was played. I'm just happy that the team dominated the game, but I expected a little bit more,” he added.