MARC STRYDOM | Sundowns’ fatigue a concern against Esperance, and PSL scheduling not helping

With a huge Champions League semifinal clash against Esperance de Tunis starting this weekend it is not so much a question of if Mamelodi Sundowns are tiring as it is how much they have tired.

Given how many matches Sundowns are playing as they compete in six competitions in 2023-24, progressing far in almost all of them, the Premier Soccer League’s (PSL) scheduling of midweek games as Downs play a huge continental semifinal has to raise questions.

Sundowns drew their DStv Premiership clash against Moroka Swallows 2-2 at Dobsonville Stadium on Monday night. The manner in which the Brazilians unthinkably blew a 2-0 lead was an indication of how their gruelling schedule is catching up to them.

They left for Tunisia on Tuesday, where Rulani Mokwena’s team meet Esperance in Saturday’s first leg at Stade Olympique Hammadi Agrebi in Tunis (9pm SA time). Downs fly home on Sunday and have to face Sekhukhune United in their league fixture at Loftus Versfeld on Tuesday. The second leg against Esperance is at the same venue next Friday.

The PSL has been notoriously unsympathetic in its scheduling of matches as Sundowns fly the South African flag in continental football year after year.

When Downs won the 2016 Champions League then-coach Pitso Mosimane coined the rallying cry “against all odds” as the PSL refused to clear domestic games to help a team chasing continental and Premiership titles.

Downs were reportedly the only team of the eight in the 2023-24 Champions League quarterfinals who had to play a midweek match before one of the legs, the second, in their 3-2 aggregate win against Young Africans. 

But wait, there is more.

Esperance are already fresher than Sundowns. The North Africans — including the African Football League (AFL), where they went out in the semifinals, Champions League and their league — have played 28 matches in 2023-24 so far. No domestic cup competitions have been played in Tunisia yet this season.

Sundowns — MTN8 finalists, inaugural AFL winners, Champions League and Nedbank Cup semifinalists and runaway Premiership leaders — have played 45 games.

Esperance, as is the custom in most countries when their teams are seeking continental glory, have no midweek fixtures to distract them ahead of both legs of the semifinal. They have played two games this month, Downs have played five, and it’s only April 17.

At the rarefied heights of a Champions League semifinal, against clubs that, given their longer existences and years partaking, always have a more established pedigree, small margins count. Esperance are four-time Champions League winners (1994, 2011, 2018 and 2019), Sundowns have one title.

No midweek domestic matches scheduled for one team, a side that has also played 11 games less this season (more than a third less than Downs), and less than half the matches this month, is not a small margin.

Sundowns are only one or two matches behind other sides in their Premiership schedule. They could have fallen farther behind and played catch-up later.

Even if their match against Swallows was on a Monday, it makes a world of difference between having a full week or more to travel and prepare and leaving on a Tuesday.

Downs also suffered a niggling injury to their most important midfielder against the Birds, Teboho Mokoena, a hero in Bafana Bafana's Africa Cup of Nations Cup bronze medal campaign this year.

Downs' other recent results, needing a dubious penalty decision to see off last-placed Premiership team Cape Town Spurs and a penalty shoot-out to get past first division Pretoria University FC in the Nedbank Cup, are further indications of their fatigue.

In some ways this is also the reality of competing at the level to which Sundowns aspire. It is why they have a big squad packed with quality. Downs also have an army of technical boffins to keep the squad conditioned. Rotation, though, when balancing seeking trophies and keeping players happy, can present its own challenges. 

Having avoided Wydad Athletic of Morocco and Egypt’s Al Ahly, teams who have proved a stumbling block at this stage, Sundowns have a real chance, if they can lift their heavy legs, of reaching a first Champions League final since 2016.

However, the Brazilians could have used all the help they could get against a fresher Esperance. Instead, it’s almost as if the PSL is setting Sundowns up to fail.

Given the rivalries and conflicts of interest that exist in leadership structures in South African football and history of a lack of co-operation from the PSL when it comes to Sundowns, that would not be an as outlandish a proposition as it sounds.