Mngqithi reveals regret from Mamelodi Sundowns’ win over Maniema Union

Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi feels his side could have won by a bigger margin than their 2-0 victory over Maniema Union in a Caf Champions League match at Loftus Versfeld Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Both the Masandawana goals came from Lyle Lakay free kicks – the first one went in directly while the second one was parried by the visiting keeper into the path of Peter Shalulile for the Namibian to poke in.

Having been the more innovative and threatening side on the day, Mngqithi was a bit disappointed that his side didn’t come away with a bigger win.

"Credit must be given to the boys, to the whole technical team and everybody involved in this club. Because it was a very good performance, personally I think it deserved more than just two goals," he told the media.

"It's a little bit disappointing to only score goals from set-pieces from such a very good performance. Because in terms of the play, I think we dominated the game, we dominated accuracy in our passing game, precision, triangles.

"Very good build-up moments, very good build-up skills by the boys. But unfortunately, they never yielded [goals]," Mngqithi continued.

"There was one of them I think if [Thabiso] Kutumela had scored, it would have been a very nice case study of our build-up play.”

Even if his side didn’t score from open play, the Brazilians’ mentor hailed the importance of being able to grind out any kind of win.

"But you must also give credit to the boys - to score goals in set pieces, it's one area that is also very important for a big team like Sundowns," Mngqithi said.

"Considering that most teams park the bus, so we'll always unlock a game by scoring from a set-piece, then the game becomes open.

"So one is excited to score from set-pieces, but a little bit disappointed that from such a dominant performance, we could not score a goal from a build-up, when we had so many build-ups and so many counter-presses and high presses."

The victory sees Sundowns booking their spot in the group phase alongside AmaZulu after the Durban club overcame the other DR Congo side, TP Mazembe.