Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi has given a honest admission on the reason why Lesedi Kapinga has struggled for any form of regular game-time so far this season.
The 25-year-old came off the bench and capped off his cameo with a brilliant goal in his side’s 4-1 victory over rivals Orlando Pirates in the Nedbank Cup quarterfinal at Loftus Stadium on Thursday night.
Kapinga has not featured as he would have wanted but has shown glimpses of brilliance whenever he has been given minutes. Unfortunately for him, competition for spots has been rather difficult, with the likes of Themba Zwane and Gaston Sirino proving to be undroppable at the moment.
Speaking on Kapinga’s struggles for minutes, Mngqithi said: “To be honest with you, the boy is very close. He is working very hard on his offensive game. There’s one area that we fight with him a lot, and I am saying this with all the humility, is improving a lot on his defensive play. He never used understand the value of counter-pressing. He never knew the value of pressing from the top and working on very hard to regain possession. Our team is a high octain team. We put a lot of effort and energy in making sure that we, as part of our team personality, we want to dominate the ball. We want all the stats in possession to favour us.”
“We want to dominate the field. That includes duals won. We want to make sure we dominate in all these aspects. Offensively Kapinga probably is one of the top players you can have, but his defensive game still needs some attention. But at the moment he is very close to breaking into the first team. We gave him a game to start against Polokwane City and he performed tremendously and scored some good goals. Unfortunately he had a hamstring injury after that, which is what has derailed him. It’s very difficult to walk into the team at Sundowns. Look at Ricardo Nascimento. He is outside, not playing, because he was suspended and we played other players who did well. How do you then take out those players? Life at Sundowns is not only difficult for the coaches, but it’s also difficult for the players.”
So far this season, Kapinga has made 16 total appearances for Sundowns but could only amass a total of 376 minutes. A good part of his game-time have come from cameos off the bench and it remains to be seen if the situation would change for the better before the season ends.