Sundowns crowned champions
AT the final whistle last night, Mamelodi Sundowns president Patrice Motsepe’s beautiful maroon Mercedes-Benz rolled onto the pitch as smoothly as his team had wrapped up matches in becoming the 2015-16 Absa Premiership champions.
It was almost immediately swamped by a sea of yellow, as delirious Sundowns fans invaded the pitch at the Tuks Stadium. Motsepe had arrived on crutches at half time of his team’s clinching 3-0 victory against Pretoria University, his left ankle mysteriously heavilycast.
He was quickly ushered to the posh seats.
From there, Motsepe would have had a glorious view of the marvellous, team-devouring monster he and Pitso Mosimane created that has dismembered many a side this season, including Tuks last night.
Behind that was the open stand, where Downs’ “Xtra- Strongs” were sucking in the chilly Pretoria air only as quickly as they could expel it with a Luciano Pavarotti-like bellow that grew in strength as Anthony Laffor banged in his hat-trick.
It was in the stands as much as on the field that one got the sense as early as December that Downs would be champions. Chants of “Pitso Out” had long since turned into the rhythmic melody that accompanied an increasingly inevitable march.
Last night, the fans came to celebrate. Sundowns have been the purists of style accompanied by brawn since their emergence from the lower ranks in the 1980s as increasingly the millionaires, and now billionaires, of South African football.
Modelled on Brazil in their colours and style of play, there has been much to celebrate in 2015-16.
The mesmeric understanding of the “CBD” attacking trio of Leonardo Castro, Khama Billiat and Keagan Dolly would have entertained Romario and Bebeto sitting in the stands.
These Downs have brought back to life the best qualities of South African football, in a modern context. They could have rivalled the combinations of the 1990s, from the Moosa-Chirwali-Khambule- Masinga generation to Feutmba- Chukwu-Mudau.
In the press box, the singing was done with fingers on laptops and voices into microphones – of praises for a team that has reminded South African football that entertainment can still be a winning industry, with the sky as the limit.
