I got it wrong with Tebza: Rulani on mind-boggling mechanics of rotation at Sundowns

It is no wonder in recent weeks workaholic Mamelodi Sundowns coach Rulani Mokwena has complained of fatigue and perhaps not being appreciated enough for the sterling work he's been doing with the Brazilians.

By the time Sundowns play their final match of the 2023-24 campaign — a mouth-watering Nedbank Cup final against Orlando Pirates at Mbombela Stadium on June 1 — they would have played a record 61 games across the six competitions they have entered.

Sundowns have played 52 the games this season: 25 in the DStv Premiership; 12 in the Caf Champions League; six in the African Football League; four in the MTN8; four in the Nedbank Cup and one in the Carling Knockout. 

His complaints aside, Mokwena and Sundowns have produced excellent results if you consider they've already won two of the six competitions, and if they bag the Nedbank Cup they'd have a 50% success rate in the trophies they played for. By all standards, their season would still be remarkable even if Pirates were to beat Sundowns for the second time in a domestic cup final this season (Bucs won the MTN8 on penalties in October).

The question is how Mokwena and his technical team have managed their squad of about 39 big-name stars during that programme.

A day after Sundowns thumped Kaizer Chiefs 5-1 at FNB Stadium last week to confirm winning the DStv Premiership for the record-extending seventh successive time, Mokwena, who has won the last two of those league titles as sole head coach, explained to the media how tough a task it has been.

“For the first time this season my biggest challenge was managing the scheduling and periodisation [scientific method involving optimal management of training intensity and rest] not only in relation to the team but in individual periodisation,” he said.

“It became complicated because you've got, for example, Afcon [the Africa Cup of Nations] where the Bafana Bafana players were gone for five weeks, but the accumulation of matches and volume of game time for Grant [Kekana] is completely different to Terrence [Mashego].

“The accumulation, and I'm talking from the physical perspective, of the pressure of playing in a competition like that for Terrence is not the same as what Grant went through, so the physiological fatigue of the two players may not be the same. From a physiological perspective the levels of fatigue are probably more for Terrence because he's got the pressure of saying, 'Why am I not playing?' Grant is playing, so he doesn't have so much stress except to say, 'I have to win football games.' Terrence has got the stress of saying, 'We have to win, and I want to help the team to win, but why am I not playing?'”

Kekana played every game as Sundowns' players formed the core of Hugo Broos's Bafana that won bronze at the Nations Cup in January and February, while Mashego was in the squad but kept out of the starting XI in Ivory Coast by Brazilians teammate Aubrey Modiba. 

Mokwena said such questions led to him focusing on individuals and what he needed to consider to gauge who was ready to play.

“That leads you to tailoring the periodisation for every single player. Then you think about the size of the squad and you've got 38, 39 players. And some, like Peter Shalulile, have to go to Namibia [for international duty] and you add a bit of travelling, you add the responsibility of him being the [national team] captain, already physiologically there is accumulation of fatigue. It's completely different.

“Ronwen [Williams] comes back [from Afcon] with a shoulder injury, but in that moment he says, 'I'm feeling fine, I have to play.' This is one of the things I appreciate about this group — whenever I ask them, 'Do you feel ready to play?' they say, 'I'm ready to play.' Just the other day I was asking Grant just before I rested him [against Chiefs] — we had a fight. That's why I say sometimes I get it wrong.”

Mokwena admitted one of those times was when he played Teboho Mokoena in a midweek league match against Moroka Swallows a few days before Sundowns departed for Tunisia, where they were to face Esperance in the first leg of last month's Caf Champions League semifinal. Downs lost 1-0 at home and away, with Mokoena missing because he picked up a hamstring injury while scoring against the Birds.

“I got it wrong with Mokoena. The day before the [Swallows] match, I had a big fight with 'Tebza' about him resting, and he said, 'No, I have to play.' I said, 'Listen, you've played 45 games already and that's the same number that some of our rivals are going to be playing the whole season.

“My gut and also the influence around me — the sports scientist, the conditioning coaches and the information they gave — told me, 'give him a rest.'

“But I listened to the player because the player is always the best doctor. Then he goes and scores a beautiful goal, then he comes off, saying, 'hey, hamstring'. I say to him, 'Ja, but you must not only give it to me, you must take it too because you knew I wanted to rest you.'”

Mokwena said he has a lot of one-on-one discussions with his players about how best to handle their schedule. At times it was difficult to convince players they had to miss games, especially when they had produced a stellar performance in a previous match. 

“I speak to them so much, I have one-on-one meetings, phone calls, conversations, I check corrections, I ask about body language. I ask Grant about his clothes: 'Why are you wearing this?' I'm that type of person, but I'm just trying to say I've got it wrong sometimes with the periodisation.”

Mokwena admitted that his second season as lone head coach at Sundowns — after working in a trio with Manqoba Mngqithi and Steve Komphela — has been an eye-opener, especially in managing individuals.

“This entire season for me has been the biggest learning experience. It was about: how do you manage? Not only the team in periodisation because that has always been there from a tactical perspective and something I've always been strong at because of my background in sports science. Training the team, the volume and the intensity of the sessions, the timing — those are things we have to do to increase the quality of the action but also the repetition of the actions in terms of intensity.

“Then the biggest one is, how do you now work on the individual? If Terrence now is a father of a newborn baby, he's not sleeping as much as maybe Grant is. 

“So when I see Terrence slouching in my video session, I've got to say maybe it's because of a late night, maybe because the baby has kept him up. When I see him not making an extra run I've got to understand. That's why we also have this thing of wellness test where the conditioning coaches give them scores [by a colour grading] every morning.

We have a responsibility to get better next season. We'll do more analysis at the end of the season. It's the time to [go through] all the games from this season. There's no holiday. It's about going and watching every single match and coming back with, where can we improve, what things we did that didn't work and what are the things worked. And how we manage the schedule, too.

—  Rulani Mokwena

“That's the information for me to say, 'Ah, Grant isn't ready today or Ronwen isn't; Tebza is green today, Sipho Mbule is yellow today.' Maybe then I've got to say, 'Sipho, why are you in yellow today, what's bothering you?'

“It has to be a conversation that I have in private. And that has been probably the biggest learning experience for me this season — how do you manage the individuals from a periodisation perspective? That is not just the load from a physiological perspective; it's the physiological, social and the feeling around the group.” 

Mokwena insisted that level of planning does not mean Sundowns can lower their guard and allow other teams to overtake them next season. Orlando Pirates and Stellenbosch FC are the teams that tried to catch up with the Brazilians but came short again. Can they do better next season? Can Mokwena allow that to happen under his watch?

“Our focus is to improve,” he said. “Our focus is not to lower our standards, so we allow them to become competitive. We have to get better, and getting better means they have to get better. And it's not our responsibility to make the league a competitive season. Our jobs are to focus on doing better than the last season.

“What that means is some of the things we did this season that worked might not work next season.

“We have a responsibility to get better next season. We'll do more analysis at the end of the season. It's the time to [go through] all the games from this season. There's no holiday. It's about going and watching every single match and coming back with, where can we improve, what things we did that didn't work and what are the things that worked. And how we manage the schedule, too.”