Mamelodi Sundowns co-head coach Manqoba Mngqithi has given an honest appraisal of Bongani Zungu, after the Bafana Bafana international’s cameo appearance in the MTN8 semi-final first leg match against Orlando Pirates.
Zungu came on in the second half for Andile Jali, as Sundowns and Pirates played out to a goalless draw at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday.
Mngqithi said Zungu has made a great deal of progress with regard to his fitness, and he showed promising signs for the future with his passing game.
“He has improved tremendously in terms of his fitness considering where he’s coming from,” Mngqithi said at the post-match press conference.
“We had a game against Township Rollers immediately after our game against AmaZulu, and he had a very good performance together with Rivaldo Coetzee. They had some top, top, top performances, which is why we considered the possibility of him helping us in this match.”
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Mngqithi also added that they hoped to improve their passing following the introduction of Zungu after “an irritating” first half.
“And even when we brought him in, I think there were a lot of verticality in his passing game. And that was very important for us.
“How many times he found Modiba, how many times he found Tebza in the half-space, how many times he found Mudau, those to us were very important and at times he would find Allende in very critical positions and Mshishi.
“And that is what we wanted, but more than anything else we wanted to improve the speed of that passing game, the interval between receiving and passing first half was very slow and that was a little bit irritating for us.”
Sundowns Coach Explains Early Jali Sub For Zungu
