Dondol Stars have assembled a squad that is strong enough to knock Orlando Pirates out of the quarter-finals of the Nedbank Cup on Saturday, the ABC Motsepe side said on Thursday.
The amateurs are not arrogant but confident that they can continue with their impressive winning streak in the tournament.
The club from Mamelodi in Tshwane made headlines when they overpowered SuperSport United in the Last 32 round in Atteridgeville over a month ago, and maintained their mojo when they dumped AmaZulu out in the Last 16 via penalty kicks.
It is these two victories that have brought a lot of confidence in young Dondol players.
Dondol captain Bafana Makhanya said: “We do not need motivation when we play against Pirates. All the players want to play in the match and they are fighting for positions in the starting 11. We are all fired up and it will be great if we can beat Pirates.”
Makhanya was supported by his assistant coach Vincent Ramoni: “We are still the same small club, we will try and learn from Pirates the same way we did against AmaZulu and SuperSport.
“We know why and how we have reached this stage. There is a lot of work that has been done in the background. The two wins have put us under a lot of pressure, and now we have to work three times as hard.
“The Nedbank Cup has helped the technical team and the players in our journey to gain promotion to the first division [Motsepe Foundation Championship].
“We were conceding a lot of goals, now we are more ruthless and no longer concede cheap goals. We cannot use the same tactics we used in the previous rounds of the tournament because Pirates play a different kind of football.”
Besides their amazing run, the coach emphasized that gaining promotion is a priority.
“Our priority is to win promotion. It will be great to do well in the cup, just like previous small team who did well before us. We have good players whom we need to keep grounded, but we want to play in the first division next year,” said Makhanya.
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