Mamelodi Sundowns senior coach Steve Komphela has revealed that the ‘maturity’ and the ‘leadership skills’ that African giants coaches have are the reasons why the Brazilians are dominating South African football. 

The dominance of Sundowns started in the 2017/18 season and since then, the Brazilians have won the Premiership seven times in a row. Sundowns is the only team that won the DStv Premiership in South Africa before the headline sponsor changed to Betway at the start of the season. 

 In the past seven seasons, Sundowns struggled to win the MTN8 Cup only. The Brazilians only won this tournament once in 2021 against Cape Town City on penalties in November at Moses Mabhida Stadium. 

Mngqithi is the one who was leading the Sundowns when they won this tournament after the departure of Rulani Mokwena during the off-season. 

Speaking to a press conference on Thursday ahead of the Carling Knockout Last 16 against Kaizer Chiefs, Komphela revealed that the leadership skills and the maturity they have as Sundowns coaches are the main reason why Bafana Ba Style is dominating SA football. 

“I think the leadership environment at Sundowns is very complex,” Komphela said. 

“Not only now, it had always been like that. In high-performance environments, you can’t hold too much sentiment because it’s about production. Answering the question directly, what is holding us together, what is keeping the environment, its maturity. It’s maturity selfishness and understanding leadership. 

 “If you are in a very complex environment like that and you are selfish, and you lack maturity, you’ll have a problem. You can imagine if I go there and I’m realistic, then coach Manqoba [Mngqithi] is there but Steve Komphela has coached at Arrows, has coached at Kaizer Chiefs, and all that. 

 “That’s leadership, if you lack that you can’t work at Mamelodi Sundowns and you can’t work anywhere else.” 

This weekend, the Tshwane-based side will be playing against Chiefs in the sold-out Carling Knockout quarterfinal at FNB Stadium on Saturday. 

Interestingly, the last time these two sides met in the League Cup in the final in the 2015/16 season, Komphela was the coach of Chiefs, but they lost 3-1 to Sundowns at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.