Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi has allayed fears of a serious injury to goalkeeper Denis Onyango who played just the first half of Sunday’s Caf Champions League match against CR Belouizdad in Dar es Salaam.
Onyango was replaced by Zambian Africa Cup of Nations winner Kennedy Mweene, who guarded goal for the rest of the match.
The injury happened ahead of Uganda’s Afcon qualifiers against Burkina Faso and Malawi.
“We don’t think it is a very serious injury because it is just a bruise. They stepped on him it’s not like he twisted an ankle or anything like that,” Mngqithi told the media.
“So we are hopeful that we will have some little bit of days before the next match and he will be able to help us.
"We don’t think it’s a serious injury. When I saw him walking on the pitch after the game I felt a little bit better, so we are hopeful he will be back soon.
"One must mention that Kennedy came in with his experience and plugged the hole, it never looked like we were shaky when he got in.”
With the match being played in neutral Dar es Salaam, Mngqithi feels Sunday's conditions favoured them and they felt at home.
“We knew we were playing against a very good team but we wanted to put our first foot forward and force them to defend because,” continued Mngqithi.
“We did feel that we have better conditions physically. The atmosphere favoured us a little bit because we are coming from high altitude and we are used to playing in the afternoon while they are not used to that."
The Algerians went down as early as the third minute when defender Chouiab Keddad received a red card.
That made them play with a numerical disadvantage for 87 minutes, which Mngqithi welcomed.
“So we wanted to push them first and it worked because very early in the game they committed a very big error and we were able to capitalise on that," Mngqithi added
"But one must also say we were assisted by the fact that they got a red card very early in the game which I would want my players to learn from. I still believe had that defender decided to let the ball go on, they would have still remained with a good number.
“They would have had a fighting chance in the game but unfortunately we were numerically superior I felt that we took that to our heads and we did not apply ourselves fully. We resorted to more ball possession instead of fighting to penetrate.”
