Rulani expressed his feelings towards his new position as the head coach of Mamelodi Sundowns.
On Tuesday, Sundowns released a statement announcing changes to the club’s technical team, which saw Mokwena named as the sole head coach of Sundowns, while Steve Komphela was appointed as the first team coach, while Manqoba Mngqithi took up the senior coach role which was previously occupied by Komphela.
“I feel an enormous sense of gratitude and appreciation for being bestowed with a huge responsibility but also, it’s a collective effort, nothing changes. I’m just as important as everyone else in this club, if not less important and there’s far more important people at Mamelodi Sundowns than myself,” said Mokwena.
“I’m just a small piece of the puzzle that tries to give his best for this organization and I will continue to do that. We still have Coach Manqoba [Mngqithi] who is esteemed and a top Coach. Coach Steve [Komphela] is also esteemed, a top coach with a pedigree that speaks for itself and Coach Wendell [Robinson, together with] the rest of our technical team, nothing changes and my importance does not get elevated at all.”
Sundowns registered a 5-0 victory over Maritzburg United in Mokwena’s first game in charge on Tuesday night and the former Orlando Pirates coach was pleased with the result.
“Congratulations to the boys for a good performance, good energy, good reflection of the team and good football also. Congratulations to the coaches for working very hard behind the scenes to get the boys mentally better prepared for a very difficult game, it was not an easy side, the score is not always a true reflection of how difficult this game was. Congratulations to the yellow nation, the supporters deserve a better feeling than what we gave them on the weekend,” said Mokwena.
“It was very important [to win], all credit needs to go to the players, all of it. All of them from the ones that were in the grandstands, the ones that we left [back] at home, the ones who were on the bench and came on as subs they [played] very good and the ones who started and applied themselves. We’ve got a very honest group of players and when we lose it’s not because we didn’t do enough, we always try our best and once again they demonstrated that. Huge kudos, hats off to them and many, many congratulations to them.”
Sundowns will be back in action on Saturday when they take on Royal AM in the DStv Premiership at Chatsworth Stadium.
