WATCH | International pundits rave about Sundowns’ football at World Cup

It is a source of national pride to see international reactions to Mamelodi Sundowns’ impressive performances at the 2025 Fifa Club World Cup (CWC) in the US.

Downs had something of a baptism of fire at their first CWC appearance in the old seven-team format in Osaka in 2016, losing 2-0 to host Japanese club Kashima Antlers and 4-1 to South Korea’s Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors.

This year Sundowns got their first CWC victory when they beat South Korea’s Ulsan HD in their 1-0 opening Group F win in Orlando, Florida.

The Pretoria team then went toe-to-toe with Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund in a thrilling 4-3 defeat in Cincinnati, Ohio on Saturday that has been hailed as one of the games of the tournament.

Downs will reach the last 16 if they upset famous Brazilian outfit Fluminense in their final Group F clash at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on Wednesday night (9pm).

In the panel show The Press on the major sports streaming channel DAZN, presenter James Allcott raved Downs were “absolutely sensational” against Dortmund and “all over them” and said “I’m Mamelodi Sundowns now”.

“I am loving their unique style of play and we’re truly seeing why they’re known as the Brazilians,” he said.

“That was so much fun, that game, wasn’t it? It was probably my favourite game of the tournament.”

Julien Laurens — a French football journalist and broadcaster who writes for Le Parisien, contributes to The Times and The Guardian and has featured regularly on BT Sport, Talksport and ESPN — hailed Downs’ thrilling movement in attack.

“They were maybe a bit too naive defensively with some of the goals [conceded], but going forward with the ball they are amazing.”

Sundowns were the more unfortunate side against Dortmund, with Ronwen Williams' out-of-character error allowing an equaliser after Lucas Ribeiro's excellent early opener, a deflected own goal by Khuliso Mudau and hitting the post twice. Downs had the better of possession and fought back from 4-1 down to make life difficult for Borussia all the way.

The statistics broken down on the DAZN show were that Downs had 16 shots to Borussia’s eight, 41 final-third entries to 33 and won 34/55 duels to 21/55.

Three of Downs’ goals were from errors or a deflection.

“They don’t really deserve, in my opinion, any of those goals,” Allcott said.

“I appreciate the [Dortmund] press was solid but all the great play came from Sundowns throughout the game.”

London-based presenter, journalist and content creator Lyés Bouzidi highlighted the vast contrast in resources between Sundowns and Borussia.

“It's remarkable that a team from South Africa is going toe-to-toe with one of the biggest teams from Europe,” he said.

“The wage bill, the finances compared between Mamelodi and Dortmund are ridiculous. I think teams like this should be proud of the effort they’re giving.”

Allcott said: “The whole world maybe didn’t know about them, they now absolutely know about Mamelodi Sundowns. They are fantastic.”