Mamelodi Sundowns defeated Kaizer Chiefs 4–0 on Saturday afternoon in Pretoria’s DStv Premiership. The Masandawana, buoyed by their supporters’ unrelenting support, produced a magnificent all-action performance to overcome their midweek sorrow, which resulted in their first loss of the season. Downs Co-Coach Rulani Mokwena praised his squad for the spirit they had during the Loftus match, saying:
“We take the win with a great deal of humility, and that compels us to congratulate the players on a fantastic performance, as well as the technical staff for their tremendous work behind the scenes to prepare the squad for what we expected to be a very tough encounter, which we received today.”
Abubeker Nasir, an Ethiopian international striker who was announced as a member of the Tshwane Giants a week ago, was purchased by the Brazilians. The 22-year-old made his debut the day following his introduction with a few glimpses of his talent, but it was during Saturday’s match against AmaKhosi that Nasir demonstrated his promise by scoring his maiden goal with a left-foot finish after beating two defenders in the penalty area. Coach Rulani emphasized his desire for the forward to improve his game.
“He still has more work to do, but he will progress. The way we play and practice guarantees that our players will progress, and the same can be said about Nasir. Again, I implore for patience and time, and to refrain from overhyping [him] since he is still very young and has tremendous potential. When we signed him, he returned to Ethiopia and spent six months there. We had to hire an English tutor to spend some time with him so that the level of [his] English could improve, and it is now of a fairly high standard. However, we’ve also had to hire a translator for him because we had trouble conveying certain instructions and information to him.
“We would also like to thank the club for supporting this idea, as when we made the request the following day, we had a translator on the training pitch with us, and you could see even before we brought him on that we were using the translator to convey the message, but [he has] incredible potential, surrounded by other incredible players.