Zwane: Sundowns Star Quality Shone Through

AmaZulu coach Arthur Zwane believes that the quality difference played a key role in their Betway Premiership defeat against Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus Stadium on Tuesday. 

Usuthu suffered their first loss of the 2025/26 campaign after winning their first encounter against Orbit College, which earned them three points and placed them in position eight on the table. 

Furthermore, Usuthu were knocked out of the quarter-final of the MTN8 by Stellenbosch.

Zwane reflected on the game and believes that Sundowns’ quality gave them an upper hand, as his team was playing with youngsters who are still learning. 

“I think today you could see the difference was quality Sundowns had and our quality as well, having young players that are still learning and trying to find their way up at this level,” said Zwane. 

“So it was never going to be an easy, most so away from home as well. I think we started well, we had a plan obviously to allow Sundowns to have the ball, wait for the right moment to exploit the space because you can’t play pound for pound with them in terms of the quality.

“So wait for the right moment and exploit where they are also weak and take advantage of that. And I think the first half, we had about three clear-cut chances, we could have at least taken one, and we could have seen their frustration even from the bench. 

“Second half, what was key for us was to make sure that we don’t concede a goal in 20 minutes, first 20 minutes were very, very important because should we conceded, the game was going to be open, then from there on they could easily get the second one and the third one.”

Zwane added: “I think we conceded too early and now we were chasing shadows at some point, but again we got back to our structure. We remembered what was working for us, and there we got about two chances that we could have taken. Should have gotten an equaliser and the winner probably before they got the second goal.” 

The former Kaizer Chiefs tactician also feels like they gave the ball easily to Sundowns. 

“We just literally gave them the ball; they were not taking the ball from us, but from just applying pressure, and then we lose the ball, we give it away cheaply,” said Zwane.

“So we had a lot of turnovers, but whenever we did the right thing, we looked like a team that could hurt Sundowns at any given time. But once more, congrats to them, the quality was the difference today.”