Who will be sacrificed for Zungu?

Minutes before Mamelodi Sundowns took on Kaizer Chiefs at Loftus Stadium, the reigning DStv Premiership champions announced the return of midfielder Bongani Zungu in front of more than 45 000 fans.

It signal the club™s intent, but also raised concerns Downs have too many players in the same position.

However, co-coach Rulani Mokwena says the squad harmony remains intact.

"It™s not our job-our job is to put a winning team on the pitch. I think that players that play for Sundowns are at Sundowns because they wanna be here-we don™t wanna keep players that don™t wanna be here, for as long as everybody feels like they wanna be here, they compete and they fight and then the responsibility of each professional football player is to try to make sure you are as professional as possible with your conduct and with the ability to still be part of the set-up of the club" said Mokwena.

Mokwena adds that the type of players recruited by the club have it in them to fight for their places even when a marquee signing like Zungu arrives.

Andile Jali, Sipho Mbule, Teboho Mokoena, Mothobi Mvala and Rivaldo Coetzee are some of the heavy artillery at Chloorkop.

"The good thing is, the profiling also helps you know, you recruit not just in relation to the technical qualities that the players have but you also recruit with regards to the personality and the human qualities and the values that players have so that they can be integrated into a group because the team is far important than any individual and in this moment we have a very good squad with a lot of very good players who now accept the responsibility to fight against each other for places to play" Mokwena added.

The Downs technical team will have some selection headaches, although Mokwena argues they will be fair in their decisions if the players are putting in the work.

Mokwena says getting Zungu, who left French outfit Amiens SC in May, to rejoin Sundowns was œcomplicated.

"I want to give huge congratulations to the club, the Sporting Director Flemming (Berg), the president of the club the chairman of the club, the management for a lot of hard work behind the scenes - a complicated deal, very complicated deal. It took very long-(with) lot of issues. I also wanna thank Bongani for his patience and trust because he had other offers and Bongani chose to come to us and he was very patient." Mokwena concluded.

By: Mazola Molefe