Mamelodi Sundowns co-head coach Rulani Mokwena believes Abubeker Nassir is the type of talent that will raise to the level of the club.
The 22-year-old was registered for the 2022/23 DStv Premiership campaign last week which could spell the end of Pavol Šafranko’s time at the club and after just two cameo appearances from the bench it’s easy to see why they were willing to make a sacrifice of one of the major investments – who only signed last season.
‘Abuki’ signed for the club in January from Ethiopia Coffee before spending the rest of the season in the Betking Ethiopia Premier League, where he was a clear standout player, having scored 29 goals in 21 games with a clean sweep of awards at the age of 21 in the 2020/21 campaign.
And he could have scooped another Golden Boot had he not been recalled by Sundowns for pre-season before the last campaign finished in his homeland.
While Mokwena is mindful of hyping him up in the media and adding pressure on his shoulders, he stated that Nassir is showing the capabilities to take the squad to another level.
“I was watching a documentary that led me into reading about something that is used in basketball for scouting, maybe later on this thing will catch on in football,” he said after Nassir scored his first goal for the club in the 4-0 win over Kaizer Chiefs on Saturday.
“They speak about ceiling raisers and you can see a player like Nassir has probably come into our club and become what you would call a ceiling raiser. He comes into a very good team and with the qualities, he possesses, could raise our profile offensively into something else.
“But again, let’s be patient, calm and rush too much in overhyping him because he still has so much work to do and the first part we need to get over is the language barrier you know. Once we get over that we’ll see a lot more good moments and performances from him.”
Sundowns return to action in the league next Saturday when they travel to the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Limpopo to face Sekhukhune United.
