Mamelodi Sundowns legend Wayne Arendse won nine major trophies during his eight years in the nation's capital, but few will have been as memorable as winning the CAF Champions League in 2016! Soccer Laduma spoke to the former Masandawana skipper to find out what the road to winning Africa's premier club competition was like.
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Prior to the 2015/16 edition, Sundowns had not been in the CAF Champions League for some time. Did you guys go into the tournament expecting to win it?
When you go to play, you play to win but it was never like, 'we must win the Champions League', like we have to win the league here at home. I think it was the belief that the coach put in the players. He made everybody feel relaxed and told us to just play and enjoy the experience here in the Champions League because Sundowns hadn't been there for a couple of years, and we wanted to feel it again. It just so happened that we were enjoying ourselves and when you enjoy yourself, that's when things start to happen for you. So, the pressure wasn't there, but the coach never placed it on us and credit to him because we went on to win it.
What was it like re-entering the competition after initially being eliminated by AS Vita?
I remember we were parading a trophy, it was either a league or a cup trophy, and the word came through that we were back in the competition and everybody was just excited to be in the group stages. By that time, we were flying in the league and the players didn't mind, everybody was up for it. I remember we played Setif and we were just performing at such a high level that even the Setif supporters chased their own team off the pitch. Khama [Billiat] and [Keagan] Dolly and [Leandro] Castro were causing havoc and that 'CBD' trio, and Sundowns as a whole began to gain recognition from the likes of Zamalek and Al Ahly. We just took it in our stride and took it one game at a time.
You hear a lot about the lack of hospitality when South African teams travel in Africa, did you guys experience anything like that during that campaign?
It's all about how you deal with it. I think it was in Nigeria, we came to the stadium and normally they give you an hour to train on the stadium pitch. We stood in front of the stadium gate and apparently, they couldn't find the person who is responsible for opening the gate. They try to get on your nerves with the smallest things but nothing hectic. Maybe here and there the food where you have to wait for food for a long time but nothing like their taking your kit.
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And you made it all the way to the final, what was the atmosphere like at the packed Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium?
Even before the final, playing away to ZESCO, we were 2-0 down and Khama scored in the 89th minute or something like that and even though we lost 2-1, the way we celebrated that goal it was as though we won that game. It gave us the belief that when we returned to Atteridgeville, we'll do the business there and we found our way to the final. Even the build up to the final, it was everywhere, everybody is reminding you but the way we started that game, it was like when you choke somebody and you don't want to let go until they can't breathe anymore. Even at half-time, most of the time the players sit but for that game the boys were on their feet ready to go for the second half because we could feel we had them [Zamalek]. You just seeing yellow in the stadium and the atmosphere was amazing, it was just a remarkable game.
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