Malesela optimistic Gallants will slay Sundowns

Marumo Gallants coach Dan Malesela has promised to give their all when they face Mamelodi Sundowns in the DStv Premiership match at Loftus Versfeld Stadium tonight at 7.30pm.

Malesela guided Gallants to their first league victory when they edged TS Galaxy in his first match in charge since he rejoined them from Royal AM.

He also helped them to advance to the CAF Confederation Cup playoff spot following a 4-1 aggregate win over Elgeco Plus.

They head into this fixture against the league defending champions with their confidence high following three successive victories across all competitions.

“Obviously, it is going to be tough. Sundowns are not an easy team to play like other teams and they have not been champions of the league for nothing,” Malesela told Sowetan yesterday.

“So, we are expecting a very tough outing, but we are prepared for it and we will also give out our own. We are expecting a very good match between ourselves and them and hopefully, we can get all three points.”

While Bahlabane Ba Ntwa have never beaten Sundowns in their six attempts, the 57-year-old coach said he would not dwell much on history and are focused on getting a good result tonight.

“Winning brings confidence; you know, we don’t want to dwell too much into history. We just want to focus on what is ahead of us and deal with it with the respect that it deserves and everything that comes with the game,” he said.

“We just want to focus on ourselves and see what improvement we can do; the improvement we see at training and everything else – whether we can translate that into the matches and see how far it can help us. We really need the points.

"We always try and prepare on relevance to what we expect to see happening in the match... but also prepare for the unknown. We are really desperate in terms of points and we want to get ourselves away where we are; every match is important and this one is one of those we feel we should do something and get something out of it."