During an exclusive interview with Peter du Toit on Betway Beat by SoccerBeat, legendary South African coach Gordon Igesund opened up about one of his most memorable moments during his time at Mamelodi Sundowns.
Reflecting on his tenure with the club, the former Bafana Bafana manager shared a remarkable story about a game against Kaizer Chiefs, where his Sundowns team strung together an astonishing 44-pass sequence while playing with just 10 men.
“That was an amazing day you know because many people always say, say to me, ‘Oh, Gordan likes the long ball’. It’s not that Gordan likes the long ball. I like to play the football to the strengths of the team that I have. Okay, so I’ll put a team together and we gonna play a certain way. And, Sundowns played like that. Pirates played like that.”
At that point, Igesund elaborated on how his Masandawana team was built to dominate possession and play a sophisticated style of football. “Sundowns now were a team that could really play. We did this at training, just keeping the ball, keeping the ball and as it happened, uhm, that week we played Chiefs, we played Pirates, we played all the big teams .”
“And the game against Chiefs was a huge game of course, as they always are, and we were leading 1 nil at one stage, and then it was 1-1, and then it became 2-1 I think and, uhm, I just said to the guys with about 25 minutes to go or 30 minutes to go, called them over, one by one, tell them, ‘I don’t want you to score another goal, we leading, I don’t want you to score. All I want you to do is keep the ball, but keep it in their half’.”
Then the guys just came out of their shell, you know, they just kept the ball and kept the ball just passing and it was amazing. I mean, 44 passes or 48 passes is a lot of passes.”, he continued.
What made this achievement even more remarkable was the fact that Sundowns were playing with only 10 men. Peter du Toit, the host of SoccerBeat, interjected, acknowledging the added challenge.
“We had 10 men, yeah, we were playing with ten men and that’s the reason why I didn’t want Chiefs to get the ball because they could be dangerous.”, the KZN-born mentor acknowledged.
As the game progressed, the sixty-eight year old reflected on the crowd’s palpable reaction. “And, they were chasing and eventually after, after a minute or two minutes of not being able to get the ball, the crowd started turning, they started clapping and everybody was enjoying themselves except Chiefs.”, Igesund recalled with a smile.
This moment remains one of the most iconic in Igesund’s illustrious career, a testament to his coaching style and the skill of his Sundowns players.
It wasn’t just about scoring goals; it was about playing to the strengths of the team, controlling the game with precision, and teamwork—qualities that defined Igesund’s approach to football and a philosophy that remains true to the football at Chloorkop.
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