Mamelodi Sundowns, the side that sent the strongest signal of intent during the off-season, opened their league campaign with a 2-0 victory over Santos last Wednesday. And on Sunday, the refurbished gleaming machine that played host to Moroka Swallows drew 1-1 — with Peter Ndlovu, the most expensive signing in the Premier Soccer League (PSL), scoring his first goal.
Mining magnate Patrice Motsepe must have gained some satisfaction from those two games. Motsepe’s choice of hiring Paul Dolezar as coach and buying the best players the continent has to offer appears to be paying dividends. The empty stands of last season seem to be a thing of the past as hordes of supporters come to witness the resurrection of the Pretoria-based side.
Yet, in seeking improvement, Sundowns need first to remember that they start off a low base. Last season’s finish of 10th, with 36 points, was 27 points off the pace set by champions Kaizer Chiefs and would have been even nearer the bottom if the league still had 18 teams.
Even without their high-profile recruitments, Sundowns should reasonably expect to crack the Top 8. Which is why their purchase of half a team, led by Brian Baloyi from Chiefs, Josta Dladla from Danish side ARG Arrhus and, most audaciously, Ndlovu from Sheffield United in the English first division, elevates them to contenders for top honours in South Africa and, in time, on the continent.
The first thing that the Brazilians need is luck. To prove how badly they have fallen from favour with Lady Luck, they need look no further than their performances against the juggernauts Chiefs, Pirates and Moroka Swallows in the second round of the league last season.
They gifted Swallows the lead through an own goal. They summoned courage to recover and led 2-1 for much of the second half. Then at the death, Marco Mthembu — displaying the lack of nerve that convinced Chiefs to release him to Sundowns (and now Sundowns to Ajax) — allowed Pitso Lekone to sneak in a late equaliser.
Against Pirates, they lost 1-0 in a game they could have at least drawn, while Chiefs beat them 2-0 in a contest they could have settled in the first half in their favour, most remembered for a glaring miss by Siaka Tiene.
Sundowns last won silverware in the 1999/2000 season when they walked away with the PSL trophy for the third time and won the charity cup in 2000.
In the 2001/02 season, they managed to reach the finals of the African Champions League, where they were beaten by the Egyptian team Al Alhy. This season Sundowns won their first silverware after three barren years when they annexed the pre-season charity cup. Their lowly finish last season excluded them from the Supa 8, leaving the Coke Cup, Absa Cup and, of course, the league as their targets for this season.
But improvement on the pitch must be matched by vision off it. And one of the areas that new Sundowns CE Peter Manda will have to work on is marketing. One of the biggest failures of South African teams is their inability to tap into their rich history as a promotional tool. For a side endowed with resources such as those now available to Sundowns, allowing this situation to continue would be criminal.
One of the strongest strings to their bow is their masters’ side. The generation of goalkeeper Mark Anderson, Mike Ntombela, scorer of Bafana Bafana’s first competitive goal Sam ‘Eiwe†Khambule, Rabbie Moripe, Harold ‘Jazzy Queen†Legodi, Ernest Chirwali and Zane Moosa evokes more affection than the current crop of players. Moosa and Chirwali can still sell more replica shirts than Wednesday’s entire starting line up against Golden Arrows at Loftus.
Sundowns’ sluggishness in assembling them as a playing unit, or even just using them to promote the club, is puzzling.
For the club to attract big crowds to their games, they need to bring back the brand of football known as shoeshine and piano football. The fans yearn for the style that brought those three league titles courtesy of the likes of the evergreen Daniel Mudau, Raphael Chukwu, Roger Feutumba, Alex Bapela and Isaac Shai.
Another marketing failure is allowing neighbours Supersport United to steal the march on them and earn streetwise credibility. United are now called Matsatsantsa a ko Pitori (Pretoria’s streetwise lads). How a team that is sponsored by a pay channel and trains at Pretoria Technikon can be deemed streetwise is baffling. The only ghetto credibility United earn is from their young coaches, Pitso Mosimane and Thomas Madigage.
Both teams now reek of relative affluence, but Sundowns can claim genuine connection to the masses through their spiritual home of HM Pitje in Mamelodi. That showed with a near-capacity crowd against Swallows. It is time to exploit the bond. The team’s return to its roots in Mamelodi is seen by the club president as a way of alleviating poverty among the unemployed.
Motsepe says that by taking the club’s home games to the township it would help the aunties and small business to grow, as those selling around the stadiums would be guaranteed some regular income.
Marketing director Alex Shakoane — also known as Goldfingers because of the array of jewellery on his fingers and neck — is renowned for his odd belief that they have conquered the local territory and now aims for the region, continent and, laughably, Europe. You can’t win hearts with empty stadiums.
Shakoane should buy a bundu-bashing vehicle and scour the Tshwane hinterland — establishing, or maybe reviving, supporter branches. As things stand, Chiefs and Pirates are far, far bigger than Sundowns in the region. Teams from Limpopo and Free State can make genuine claims of having bigger crowds than Sundowns.
Finally, there has been the inevitable tendency to compare Motsepe to Chelsea owner, the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. That is limited and somewhat unfair. First, Abramovich accumulated his wealth through questionable means. Also, while Motsepe applies his wealth with a social conscience, there is little to suggest that about Abramovich. Finally, where Abramovich seeks immediate results, Motsepe seems patient.
Motsepe, who last season saw his side fail to reach any cup final, is hoping that with his new signings he will be able to achieve what both he and Sundowns supporters have missed for a long time: trophies.