Sundowns in Trump’s US as flagbearers and mythbusters at weird time in history

It has to be noted that it is a stranger time for Mamelodi Sundowns to have travelled to America for a Fifa Club World Cup than what might have been expected when their participation was confirmed last year.

Everyone knows the state of dishevel and crisis the US has been in and ramifications for Africa and South Africa since Donald Trump’s second inauguration as president in January. Everyone not swept down the social media-driven river of Maga hogwash, at any rate.

The upshot is, while any team from the country or continent going to a Club World Cup is rhetorically said to be flying the flag for both, and while Downs’ players will be desperate to only think about the football, there is a subplot to their participation at Fifa’s first 32-team tournament that is hard to ignore.

The 2025 Club World Cup has been expanded from the old seven-team format. Rather than water down the standard, the transformation from two strong clubs from Europe and South America, two competitive sides from Africa and Asia and two weaker teams from Oceania and Concacaf, plus the hosts, to a tournament that contains the world’s major football clubs makes for a more intimidating format.

Sundowns, who travelled to the US on Sunday for the World Cup that starts on Saturday, US time, are in Group F with Borussia Dortmund, Fluminense of Brazil and Ulsan HD of South Korea.

The Pretoria team got something of an awakening at their first Club World Cup in Osaka in 2016, where their inexperience at the level showed as they were dismantled 2-0 by host club Kashima Antlers of Japan and 4-1 by Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors of South Korea.

Their desperation to compete on an equal footing this time showed in the responses of the players and assistant coach Steve Komphela in brief interviews as they departed from OR Tambo International Airport.

Komphela was seemingly put forward to face the press because head coach Miguel Cardoso was being shielded from flak for some of his decisions as Downs lost the Champions League final against Pyramids FC of Egypt earlier this month. He was asked if style of play — some critics have labelled Cardoso’s as too conservative for a team synonymous in identity with expressive football — is important at the Club World Cup. Komphela stressed the importance of flying the flag for country and Africa on the field and recognising a further gravity off it.

“It does matter. This is bigger than football, and not only bigger but deeper than football,” he said.

“When we were going through our preparation I was thinking about, ‘Steve, where are you guys going?’, I got a feeling like it was South Africa going to [the 2002 World Cup in] Korea and Japan, or South Africa was going to play in Germany 2006 or Brazil 2014. This is a World Cup — it’s only that it’s a World Cup for clubs, but the mandate and the theme remain the same.

“We are going to sell an African product, we are going to compete with the rest of the world, but we as Africans, what are we bringing to the table? And it should not only be Mamelodi Sundowns going out to compete at the Club World Cup, it should be an African team.

“I have been posing a question to some of our players to say sometimes we don’t go deep enough to discover the purpose of what we are doing. Sometimes we take things so lightly to say this is just one of those matches, one of those tournaments. No. It’s bigger and deeper than that.

“An African team going to campaign in the World Cup of clubs is a team holding a flag and we are going there to represent Africans. And we have to reflect that.”

All Africans who cannot be in the World Cup are represented by us and we have to make sure we represent them well. The misconception where the world thinks Africa is one country, we must rectify that. The world thinks Africa is about poverty, disease and all these things – we have to get rid of such myths.

—  Steve Komphela

While Komphela did not say it in those words, in the era of Trump’s second term and what that stands for globally, representing Africa at a World Cup in that country, whose nations the US president once referred as “shithole countries”, must take on greater meaning.

Trump’s relationship with South Africa since taking office again and that of acrimoniously-departed Doge director and X, Starlink and Tesla owner Elon Musk adds a layer to where the Pretoria club are travelling. It was reported Downs’ multibillionaire owner and Confederation of African Football president Patrice Motsepe helped broker last month’s White House meeting between Trump and South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa.

In this context, a football club that has its roots in Mamelodi outside the capital Pretoria is flying not just its yellow and green football flag, but the rainbow one of the country, more than it might have in normal circumstances. No pressure then, guys.

“When I stand there next to a counterpart who comes from a different continent, as an African I must also feel represented and stand there with pride, knowing I’m also human,” Komphela said.

“There’s a lot we are fighting for. The biggest mistake we make is to consider sport as sport. Sport is a war that is fought without weapons where we fight for the people who cannot be there.

“All Africans who cannot be in the World Cup are represented by us and we have to make sure we represent them well. The misconception where the world thinks Africa is one country, we must rectify that. The world thinks Africa is about poverty, disease and all these things — we have to get rid of such myths.”

Another myth pertaining particularly to South Africa Komphela might have referenced, given the damage caused by its spread by Trump, Musk, some members of Congress and right-wing media mouthpieces like Tucker Carlson, is one of a “white genocide” in South Africa.

Sundowns are just a football team. They are, by African standards, a really good one, and under their billionaire owner they have moved towards standards of professionalism in Southern Africa that have followed those led up north by a club such as Al Ahly, getting closer to the level set in football’s mecca in Europe.

It seems a tough enough challenge for captain Ronwen Williams and his men to have to go to a Club World Cup and try to compete on the field with the giants who made the standards. That they should be aware of representing black and African excellence too, seems a big ask. Perhaps Downs will thrive from such expectations.

Kickoff against Ulsan at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida, is at midnight next week Tuesday. Many South Africans will be glued to their TVs to see how that pans out.