Season 2022-23
Sundowns
So, I decided to take the job at Sundowns, and this season has been an absolute blast.
We won the league at a canter, finishing 12 points clear, a mightily impressive performance in a league which only has 30 games. We dominated from the start, winning 15 of the first 17 games. We only started really dropping any points when we focused on other competitions. Well, the Champions League, to be more precise.
By the time we sealed the league title, we had already won both the Super 8 and the South African Knockout Cup, the latter with the most comfortable 2-0 win you'll see in a long time against Orlando Pirates. Having already won a domestic trophy in South Africa with Maritzburg last season, I didn't need to win one this year, but winning breeds confidence and sets standards. With that in mind, you can imagine my frustration when we lost on penalties to Orlando Pirates in the South African FA Cup, having been 3-0 up at half time. We were still competing in the Champions League at this point, so I was annoyed that we'd given up our chance of winning a quintuple, let alone doing it in that matter. Golden Arrows, who finished 10th in the league, then beat Orlando Priates 1-0 in the final as well.
Winning the league was the secondary target this season, as I'm confident I'll pick up league title wins along the way, but winning the Champions League was always priority number one. We beat Gambia Armed Forces 13-0 on aggregate in the preliminary round, before beating ASKO 9-0 on aggregate to qualify for the group stages. We were grouped with ES Setif, CR Belouizdad and last year's winners, Al-Ahly. We were incredible, winning all 6 games, scoring 16 and not conceding at all. Simba were then despatched 3-0 over two legs, stretching our clean sheet record in the competition to 12 games. We faced familiar opposition in the semi-finals, where we played last year's league winners, Cape Town City, who were struggling in the league. We didn't turn up for the first leg away, losing 2-1, but they also had 2 goals disallowed as well. We scored in the first minute of the return leg to even the tie, before going on to win 3-0 and take us through to face ES Tunis in the final.
It's probably worth mentioning Peter Shalulile at this point. A phenomenal season from him up front, scoring 38 in 33, including 17 in 12 in the Champions League. What I didn't need to happen was for him to damage his achillies tendon a day before the Champions League final. Terrible news and even worse timing. It meant my summer signing, Evidence Makgopa, would need to step up. Could he make himself the hero?
Yes, yes he could! He netted in the 78th minute for the only goal of the game, in a very, very nervy final. We'd conquered the continent! Due to the lack of viable options for winning the African Champions League, I'm so ridiculously pleased to have got this off the list only two seasons into the challenge. One of the things I've learnt from completing this twice is that somewhere along the line, you need to just be in the right place at the right time, and I think beating Sundowns on the last day of last season to stop them winning the title contributed to them hiring me for this year. I spent wisely, bringing in a couple of players to improve a first team which was arguably already far and away better than the rest of the league, as well as a few players to provide the depth to challenge on multiple fronts.
This team has been excellent. I'm going to start keeping a challenge XI at the end of each season, and quite frankly, all XI so far come from Sundowns.
GK: Sifiso Mlungwana (Sundowns) - 25 clean sheets in 43 games. Trustworthy.
RB: Abubbaker Mobara (Sundowns) - Average rating of 7.54, with 5 assists in 17 games. So, so good.
CB: Rivaldo Coetzee (Sundowns) - Average rating of 7.38. Big game player.
CB: Olisah Ndah (Sundowns) - Average rating of 7.44. Leader.
LB: Aubrey Modiba (Sundowns) - Average rating of 7.18. Consistent.
CM: Bongani Zungu (Sundowns) - 92% pass completion rate for the season. Dominant.
CM: Teboho Mokoena (Sundowns) - All round midfielder. Reliable.
AMR: Marcelo Allende (Sundowns) - 17 goals and 16 assists. Absolute Wizard.
AMC: Thabiso Kutumela (Sundowns) - 16 goals and 10 assists. Key goals in big games.
AML: Themba Zwane (Sundowns) - 17 goals and 15 assists in 29 games. Incredible.
ST: Peter Shalilule (Sundowns) - 38 goals in 33 games. Clinical.
I now need to wait and see what jobs come up. I've done a couple of coaching badges, and I'm looking forward to the next challenge. I'd like a club in their nation's top league somewhere in Asia or South America next I think, but we shall see what happens!
Season Team Position Notes and Achievements
2021-22 Maritzburg 10th Took over halfway through the season in 16th. FA Cup winners!
2022-23 Sundowns 1st League winners! Champions League winners! Knockout Cup winners! Super 8 winners!
Challenge Progress
Club
1/10 top domestic leagues (Sundowns - South Africa)
1/10 domestic cups (Maritzburg - South Africa)
1/5 club continental championships (Sundowns - African Champions League)
0/1 club world championship
International
0/5 continental tournaments
0/1 world tournaments