Mamelodi Sundowns came out on top of a thrilling encounter against Kaizer Chiefs, which was marred by controversy.
The defending champions Sundowns, showed character to come back from a deficit to win in Chiefs’ backyard.
It was Chiefs who started the scoring, as target man Ranga Chivaviro bullied Sundowns defender Mosa Lebusa to score. That strike sent the home faithful into raptures and it was the Limpopo native’s second in two games. The visitors did not sit back after that though and grabbed an equaliser through Lucas Ribeiro. The Brazilian would then turn provider in rather dubious fashion, laying a perfect cross to striker Iqraam Rayners to score the eventual winner. At the time of receiving the ball, he looked to have been offside.
Chiefs and Sundowns play out to a thriller
The contentious decisions would continue to the second half as Edson Castillo’s volley strike was ruled out. According to the referee, Lebusa was pushed by Inacio Miguel, giving the Venezuelan a clear advantage to the ball. In the end both Chiefs and Sundowns created chances that made for an entertaining game. That resulted handed new coach Nasreddine Nabi his first loss in charge of the Glamour Boys.
Speaking after the game Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi admits he was impressed by Chiefs.
“To be honest, I think the team [Chiefs] looks very good,” Mngqithi said in his post-match press conference. It looks refreshed, it looks energized, and the structure that coach Nabi is playing with is very potent. It’s very difficult for teams to really understand because he has that front three that is ‘cheating’ and he’s got the four in the midfield, with the two central pivots, and uses [Wandile] Duba on one side and he uses the front three up there. [Bradley] Cross would push a little bit more, and they remain with the last three, which is why we wanted Tashreeq [Matthews] to be outside [Reeve] Frosler.
Initially, we thought Duba would be on that side, so we wanted to make sure that we stretch Frosler a little bit because Cross was never supposed to be there, based on our analysis, and they changed because they wanted to take care of Thapelo [Morena], which I think helped to a certain extent. But I don’t think it helped that much,” Mngqithi said.
Mngqithi would then go on to give Chiefs advice…
Mngqithi impressed by Nabi’s Amakhosi
“But the truth is, it’s refreshing to see a Kaizer Chiefs team that plays like this. They must look to try and try to dominate matches more because we cannot as big teams always rely on good rest-attack and counter-attacks. We must also try to really put our foot forward. But I’m very happy with the progress the coach has made in such a short space of time,” said `Mngqithi as per KickOff.com.
Chiefs fans, are you happy with start to life under Nabi? Feel free to leave your thoughts and feelings in the comments below.
