As Mamelodi Sundowns are on the verge of their second CAF Champions League final in a row, midfielder Marcelo Allende said they are going all out to make sure they win the title this time.
Masandawana will host Esperance in the second semifinal at Loftus Versfeld Stadium on Saturday (3pm), with a 1-0 advantage after their victory in Tunisia on Saturday.
This means the Brazilians will need to avoid defeat to progress to another final of the continental competition. Allende said they approach every match with the intention of winning, irrespective of the previous results.
I’m happy with the results, team spirit. I think we will fight until the final
— Midfielder Marcelo Allende
“I’m happy with the results, team spirit. I think we will fight until the final. We know Esperance are a strong team. We need to keep focus and play from the first minute and go for the win,” Allende told the media in Tunisia.
“We have a long week to recover and prepare the game the best possible way. We need to finish the game in Pretoria with our people. The match is not finished, but we need to go to the final.”
The 27-year-old Chilean international expects Esperance to come at them to try to overturn the result. He said they will need to come up with a plan to hurt them on Saturday.
The Tunisian giants are capable of scoring more than one goal away from home after scoring three against Al Ahly in Cairo in the quarterfinal to win 4-2 on aggregate.
“It’s football, anything can happen, but we need to focus on our game and prepare where we can attack and hurt them,” he said.
“We will go back to Pretoria to prepare the game in the best way and we will play the game to win. We will play in front of our people and we need to go for a win.”
Allende said they are highly motivated to go all the way after winning in Tunisia for the first time against Esperance.
“We know how tough it is to play in Tunisia, but we are Sundowns and we are always looking for a win anywhere.
“I don’t know if it was a surprise, but we are very happy with the results.
“We know the crowd in Tunisia. We have experience. We played a lot of games against Esperance last year and two years ago.”
Sowetan
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