Cape Town City edges Mamelodi Sundowns on home turf

Taariq Fielies gives Cape Town City first leg advantage in the MTN8 semifinals

Pic credit: SuperSport

Cape Town City played against Mamelodi Sundowns in the first leg of the MTN8 semifinals on Saturday, August 25 at Cape Town stadium with Taariq Fielies delivering an impressive goal from perfectly-time setpiece. The fullback also walked away with the Man of the Match accolade.

CT City have been the only club to appear in this competition's semifinals in the last three seasons, having reached this stage in every year of their existence. They lost to Kaizer Chiefs in the Last 4 back in 2016, and went on to beat former MTN8 champions Bidvest Wits in 2017, eventually losing to SuperSport United in the finals during a penalty shootout. 

Despite their frustrating league game against Golden Arrows at home last week (August 17), head coach Benni McCarthy was in good spirits having gotten a win at home even though it looks to be another difficult challenge when they travel to Sundowns.

Benni felt that his team did particularly well in the second half in terms of the tactics but thought his team should've started in that manner in the first half; however the game wasn't favouring both sides in the first few minutes of the game despite some moments when either side was knocking at goal.

"I think for the people who paid to come and watch two great football teams was money's worth.I think we got it right tactically towards the second half; we were much better on how we were supposed to start the game," he said.

"We were a bit sluggish. Kouassi was at times giving away the ball too easily which allowed them to dictate the game.

"But we were fortunate to go into halftime goalless and I just said to the players that we should dictate the game, to control the pace of the game because I think as much as they are Sundowns players and some of the best players we've got in the country but if we apply more pressure higher up with the likes of Madisha and Lebusa, they haven't played together as a per yet; there's not much understand and I think that second half we started doing that much better and then we started controlling things, started to play our style of football.

Benni felt that his side was fortunate going into halftime goalless and used the opportunity to motivate his players to take control of the game in order for the occassion to not play them. He also sang Ayanda Patosi's praises which he seems to do often, adding that the number 10 was putting in the effort and all that they practised in training to good use, giving them some advantage where they needed.

"We got the balls in the right areas, and we got Mkhize (Thamsanqa) and Martin (Craig) to go on the overlap but I also asked them to make use of our aerial strength because that's what we are good at. We have got the best deliverer in the game, Patosi and he was putting in the balls in the areas we were asking him to, where we practised this past week," McCarthy told the media.

''We scored from the set piece and we know that's the area where we can hurt them. I still feel like we let them off the hook a bit, but I am happy with the overall; the effort, attitude, mentality and just the all-round perseverance from the guys.

"We were able to score one goal and last week was such a frustration because we didn't have one shot on target and today was different where we could've punished the best team in the league, but we gave ourselves a 1-0 advantage.

"We didn't concede and that is superb. Four games now for Peter (Leeuwenburgh), four clean sheets - that is rather tremendous and I already see Sundowns trying to figure out how they can get in so that's good," Benni concluded the presser with some laughter in the media audience.

Cape Town City will travel to Pretoria on Sunday, September 2 where they will meet Mamelodi Sundowns at Lucas Moripe stadium with hopes to keep up their current advantage.

Till next time. . .