Mamelodi Sundowns face Valentine's Day reunion with Rulani Mokwena's side in CAF Champions League

IT JUST DOES NOT get any better than this, does it? Mamelodi Sundowns against Rulani Mokwena in the final group match of the CAF Champions League with everything to play for. The soccer gods are a generous lot indeed.

That is only next weekend though. Happy Valentine's Day to the football lovers.

Before we see the young coach who left the South African champions under a cloud at Loftus take on his former employers, his beleaguered successor Miguel Cardoso has the unenviable task of having to keep Sundowns in the running for a knockout phase via a tough clash in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Fresh from receiving a stay of execution via that 2-1 Nedbank Cup first round victory over lower division side Gomora United midweek, the Portuguese should be good still no matter their result against St Elois Lupopo Sunday afternoon.

Sundowns are third in Group C with five points after four matches, trailing the leaders Al Hilal by three points while they lag behind Mokwena’s Algeria n table-toppers by two points.

Success against bottom-placed Lupopo will put them in the pound seats prior to next weekend’s must-see finale. Lose to a Lupopo — they cannot afford to drop points if they are to progress to the knockout phase and the pressure on the South Africans will be immense.

Cardoso might just as well start exploring the possibility of a flight out of OR Tambo on Valentine’s Day for surely failure to make the knockout stages of the competition Sundowns covet so much will be too much for his employers to bear.

As it is, the bald Portuguese has been treated with kid gloves by a management that has dealt with his predecessors in a massively harsh way. That Sundowns parted ways with Mokwena despite his having led them to a near-perfect league campaign during which they lost just once and on the last day of the season still doesn’t make sense.

And then as though that was not strange enough, Chairman Tlhopie Motspepe and Sporting Director Flemming Berg went and declared Manqoba Mngqithi not good enough for losing to Magesi FC in the Carling Knockout final even though he was still in the running for both the championship and the CAF Champions League titles.

It is those decisions that have got some of us wondering just why local coaches are being measured with a different scale to their overseas counterparts. The Sundowns fans have voiced that in the ‘worst’ way South African football supporters know how – via violence.

Their reaction to the 2-2 draw against Al Hilal at Loftus a fortnight ago in which they spilled water on Berg forcing him and Cardos to be escorted out of the stadium via a different door was ugly and uncalled for. But you can bet they will be even more incensed should Sundowns not make the knockout stages, more so be sent packing by a coach Masandawana still hanker for.

Cardos and his players know what’s at stake out in tough Lubumbashi where Orlando Pirates were smashed for a three in the preliminary round – defeat is not an option, the fact their campaign will not be the end of their participation notwithstanding.

Whatever the result against Lupop though, Rulani Mokwena’s return next weekend is going to be a match for the ages. It really does not get better.