Manqoba Mngqithi content with Mamelodi Sundowns' progress

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi feels they are on the right track after they concluded their preseason tour in Austria at the weekend on a high note.

The Brazilians ended their tour with back-to-back wins against Al Arabi and Al Hilal, and Mngqithi was left impressed with how they performed.

They started the tour with back-to-back defeats to SV Sandhausen and Dynamo Kyiv before drawing with Cardiff City and winning against Al Arabi and Al Hilal.

"To be honest, I was not really sad with the first two results. I think in the first match, the team played really badly," Mngqithi told the Sundowns media department.

"'Maybe it was a long trip and we had activation a day after and played a match. I think it was a little bit suicidal and we were a little bit flat.

"The Kyiv loss was not a loss for me because I think in that match, our application was perfect and we created a lot of good moments.

"That's when I started seeing that our structure is coming in and the work of the coaches as well as our conditioning department.

"If you look at how this team ran, it really shows you are building up and it would have been nice to still have had one or two more games from here, but we have a strong belief that the team is getting together and in my honest opinion, I think we are almost there."

Mngqithi was also encouraged to see the youngsters performing well, especially in their final match against Al Hilal on Saturday, where they won 2-1.

"I was also impressed with [Arthur] Sales coming in. We want to see what he could give us because his condition is not yet at our level in terms of intensity about the work that he is putting in," he said.

"He is very clinical and we believe we will greatly benefit from him. I was also impressed with the group that started. We had a lot of youngsters in that team."

The Brazilians will start their competitive match against Polokwane City on August 11 in the MTN8 quarterfinal at Lucas Moripe Stadium.