‘He must manage his house and allow me to manage mine,’ said the Sundowns head coach.
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi has hit back at his Bafana Bafana counterpart Hugo Broos over comments he made about star midfielder Teboho Mokoena. The continued absence of Mokoena in the Sundowns line-up led Broos to question Mngqithi’s selection policy.
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Mokoena was back to his usual best in Bafana’s back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Congo-Brazzaville. The 27-year-old responded to his omission in the Brazilians match-day squad in the most emphatic way with a brace in Bafana’s 5-0 win against the Central Africans at Nelson Mandela Bay last Friday.
Mngqithi-Broos mud-slinging
As expected, the Belgian coach highlighted Mokoena’s quality in his post-match press conference, while also slinging mud in Mngqithi’s direction. Broos doesn’t agree with the treatment of the highly-rated midfielder at Sundowns.
“Broos is just talking, he must manage his house and allow me to manage mine because nobody tells him who to play in his team and I can’t be expected to be told by another coach who to play in my team,” Mngqthi said on Thursday.
“The truth is, we all know the quality of the players and they are going to help us. We don’t have any problems with them. We’ve resolved whatever minor issues we might have had but each man for his own family. We must take care of our own space and nobody says anything when he plays eight defenders, we keep quiet because it’s his choice.
“I respect him as a coach and he has done very well for the country and everybody’s excited he got a bronze so he must understand that we have a responsibility to manage our own squad just like he’s managing his own squad. The best thing that could have happened is for him to call me where we talk about our situations.”
Usually reserved, Mngqithi was also not happy with the management of his captain Themba Zwane, who suffered an achilles tendon tear in the away match in Brazzaville. The former Golden Arrows coach feels that the 35-year-old midfielder, who is facing a minimum of four months on the sidelines, could have been managed better.
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Mngqithi – ‘This thing starts from respect’
“I think this thing starts from respect. If you respect one another in life you will always communicate better because in one way or the other, we all need each other and it’s sad when you lose some of your players,” Mngqithi added.
“You know for him to recover after a match would not be the same as a younger player like Mabena. To see a player like Themba playing 90 minutes in the first match and still starting the second match, already for me that was alarm bells and I think we could have dealt with this thing better.”
