Is Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies suffering from stagnation?

                                        Image: Mamelodi Sundowns Facebook

 

In 2021, Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies won the inaugural African Women’s Champions League title, a huge achievement that raised a few eye brows, together with expectations for more greatness, and a possible dominance of women’s football in the continent.

Fast forward to 2022, Sundowns Ladies relinquished their title to a determined, well organised, and technically/tactically superior ASFAR Ladies from Morocco.

If anything, the loss to ASFAR highlighted how much Sundowns have to improve if they are to win the continental showpiece again in this lifetime.

While the other teams in the continent and locally have been showing great improvements as the women’s game continues to gain more recognition, the Hollywoodbets Super league champions seem to have remained stagnant.

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Recently, they were shocked 1-0 at home by Royal AM, and they are currently second on the log behind UWC (University of Western Cape).

Losing to Royal AM, it must be said, is not a train smash, so is being second on the log in the early parts of the season.

But the fact that the mighty Sundowns Ladies have managed to score 13 goals in eight matches, compared to UWC’s 28 in seven matches, tells a story of how the other teams are improving in leaps and bounds, while the Brazilians have remained a bit stagnant. To emphasize on that point, third placed University of JHB has also scored more goals, 26 to be precise, than Sundowns.

Riding on their 2021 success, Sundowns should be head and shoulders above the rest in the Hollywoodbets Super League, and Africa for that matter, unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the matter,which highlights a problem with the team’s growth.

Despite the obvious cracks showing, Masandawana Ladies coach, Jerry Tshabalala believes Sundowns can become one of the best teams in the world, an ambition that is more than attainable considering the resources, both human and financial at their disposal.

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“When I first took over, I wanted to make Sundowns one of the best teams in Africa. In 2012 the team was nowhere and one year later we were champions of the country. We want to make this one of the best teams in the world now,”

“We are in the top 30 teams in the world, and we need to be competing with the likes of Chelsea and being in the top 5 in the world. To be successful you must be grounded and humble. We just want to keep winning and that’s in our culture in the club.”

The fact is, Sundowns ladies, who were voted the best ladies team in Africa by IFFHS, can regroup and go on to win their fourth Hollywoodbets Super League title in a row, which is possible.

But another fact is, the other teams are quickly improving, and that is what Downs should be doing too. Reaching the dizzying heights of their male counterparts should be their goal, again, they have the resources, Jerry Tshabalala needs to utilize them well, and maybe, just maybe, his dream of making Sundowns Ladies one of the best in the world may become a reality.

At the rate they are going though, it looks impossible.