Sundowns coach Mokwena believes they can win the Champions League

Though he insists winning the champions League is not an obsession for Mamelodi Sundowns, coach Rulani Mokwena believes they have the capacity to reclaim the coveted trophy.

“I have to believe we have the capacity to win the Champions League. If I don’t have that belief then I shouldn’t coach Sundowns,” he said this week as they prepared to take on Cameroonian side Coton Sport at Loftus on Saturday night (9pm). 

“We have very good players, we have players that have the ambition of being in that space. Yes, for sure I believe that (we can win the Champions League) and do I think it's going to be easy, no.  

“It is not going to be easy, look at the quality of the teams that are in the quarterfinals already. It is teams like Raja Casablanca for example, who haven’t won the Champions League since 1999.  

“Al Ahly, Wydad, these are teams that are many years older than us, these are teams that have been trying to win the Champions League and competing in this space for many decades.” 

A win over Coton Sport will see Sundowns finish at the top of the group but Mokwena played down their chances. 

“That already shows that we don’t have any God-given right to consider ourselves favourites or as the team that can get Champions League by just pitching up for matches. 

“It is important for us to finish number one in the group because it has a whole lot of connotations to it. We want to finish first and make sure that we complete the group stages with the same excellence that we played with every single match now. 

“Winning is a habit, it sounds clichéd but it's important. If you are going to the knockout rounds you need to know the feeling of knowing how to win important games and this is the mentality we are taking into the next match.” 

Mokwena added that the recent international break was good. 

“We took the liberty of the break to manage the squad. We had a couple of players that needed a bit more work than others. They were on different programmes. There were also some players who needed a couple of days off because of the number of games that we have played so far. 

“We are up against a very good Coton Sport side, the results don’t show it but you can see the quality in their team, especially with regards to their attack. 

“They have some very good players who can create a lot of problems for anybody and they have aggressive fullbacks with lots of crosses into the box.  

“They average 15 crosses into the box per match, they put 25 crosses into our box when we played against them in Cameroon. They are a strong side with a lot of potential and we have to make sure that we are at our best to win the match.” 

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.