Sundowns’ shocking defeat: concerns for the PSL standards

Towards the end of Saturday’s Carling Knockout final, television cameras panned the Mamelodi Sundowns suite area and Fleming Berg's facial expression could be best described as ‘death warmed up’.

The Sundowns sporting director Berg was pictured along with his chairman Tlhopie Motsepe, at a time when the final against Magesi was 85 minutes into the match.

At that stage, Sundowns seemed to lose their way and Magesi had forced a few corners in quick succession, one of which produced the eventual 87th-minute matchwinner.

The television plays showed that Sundowns had six players and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams in the penalty area to defend the set-piece.

Magesi had three players in the area to challenge for the corner.

Delano Abrahams, the 33-year-old right back was one of them and he charged in unmarked to knee the ball past Williams for the eventual winner.

Abrahams was one of six players in the Magesi line-up playing in their debut Premiership season. Their coach Clinton Larsen had been coaching in the leagues lower than the Premiership. After the match, Larsen said he assembled his squad from 'PSL rejects' and players who had been looking for work.

It must be very worrying for Berg that this vastly experienced Sundowns team, which forms the backbone of Bafana Bafana’s high-riding squad, could not defeat a ragtag combination. This Sundowns squad is one of the most expensively assembled squads in Africa.

Saturday's defeat follows a recent loss to Polokwane City in a Premiership match. Before that Sundowns suffered back-to-back MTN8 defeats to a youthful Stellenbosch side in the rebuilding process after selling their best players to Sundowns and Pirates in the pre-season.

Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi will be feeling the heat after these reverses and Sundowns' hierarchy could be pondering a change of coach. It was thought Berg was hiring and firing at Sundowns after the departure of former head coach Rhulani Mokwena.

However, subsequently, Berg defended himself and explained a committee was responsible for hiring and firing decisions. He said: “We want to win because we have the best talent, that should be why we are winning.”

Best talent or not, Sundowns have been far from invincible even though their depth of talent in the squad is such that they can field a second-string XI and still win matches comfortably.

Former head coach Rhulani Mokwena was fired at the end of last season after the star-studded Sundowns lost two matches at the end of the season and Mngqithi was tasked with the head coach's duties. After these reverses, the Sundowns committee may sooner or later look to address the matter.

In the greater scheme of things, it must be worrying for the PSL that a bunch of Premiership greenhorns can defeat their perennial champions. A question mark hangs over the PSL’s playing standards.

Bafana coach Hugo Broos said two years ago that the PSL's playing standards “were not good” and that was why fewer South Africans are playing abroad these days.

Let’s hope the PSL are listening.