Mamelodi Sundowns coach Rulani Mokwena says his side are still reeling from their CAF Champions League exit last season, which has seen them add a more robust style to their game in this campaign.
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Pain, they say, changes people and in the case of Sundowns, changes teams.
The Brazilians suffered a heartbreaking CAF Champions League exit at the hands of Wydad Casablanca last season, incredibly without losing a single game.
That experience, according to Downs' head coach, has forced the team to adapt a more aggressive style of defending, which minimizes their chances of conceding goals in the competition.
"I take it as a compliment. I think it's something that I think if you look at all the most successful teams globally, they've always had this side. You go to a Manchester United with your Roy Keanes. Liverpool sides have always had some of these characters like Jamie Carragher. The likes of Rio Ferdinand were not the ‘getting dirty’ type of players but they were always getting stuck in with a lot of personality.
"Real Madrid with Zinedine Zidane that won three Champions League titles. Your Al Ahly sides that get dirty and maybe not so pretty," he told journalists at the Nedbank Cup press conference in Sandton.
“Neo Maema, at the beginning of the season that my talks are very painful and it's because I've still got a lot of pain on how we lost the Champions League last season and even though the pain comes with maybe a good sense of motivation, but I think the biggest lesson I learned was the importance of the away goals in the Champions League and I said to myself, really right from the beginning is that if we are to lose a tie, it must not be because you've conceded goals and that is one of the things I worked very, very hard with the technical team and the coaches to try to improve on our side.
“I mean, you can just imagine being the best team on the continent last season, not having lost a game, but then you exit the Champions League, which is a playground that we want to be part of, and we want to be consistently featuring in the semi-finals, quarter finals, but if you neglect the laws of the game and at this time, unlike the UEFA Champions League, which we all watched, Mamelodi Sundowns cannot afford to be home in the Champions League and concede three goals. It's not possible because of the away goals rule.
“And that is why, I think one of the biggest factors in terms of us becoming a bit miserly at the back and trying to keep clean sheets and not conceding goals is perhaps how we lost the Champions League last season, and we know we can’t change the laws of the game, but of course, we can change how we perform. Of course, we still want to play the Sundowns way, but we have to continue with what we are doing. And one of the biggest aspects is conceding goals,” he explained.
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