Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi admits they will be utilising a substantial number of players considering their hectic travel and fixture schedule for the next week.

Masandawana will begin their travels with a trip to the Al Salam Stadium in Cairo for their second Caf Champions League Group A encounter on Saturday, before they take on Pitso Mosimane’s Al Ahly side at the same venue a week later.

Mngqithi says he’ll need to take more than 25 players with him for both matches as he considers travel and match fatigue.

“We will take a substantial number of players considering that we are playing two matches, normally we take 25 players for one match, but this time around we will take a little bit more because we know there are Covid issues, the fact that we are playing two matches,” Mngqithi told his club’s official website.

“Some players are not very ready to play the first, maybe they’ll be ready to play the second one, it’s one of those where we have to take as much as we can. It’s better to stay than to travel in and out, if maybe Egypt’s Air was operating on the days where we would’ve loved to travel, maybe we would consider going and coming back because we would be having direct flights there, but now we don’t have direct flights because Egypt Air flies on very few days,” the coach explained.

“I think a stay in Egypt is the best option, we looked at it with the coaches and everybody else involved in the club, and we all feel we might end up having a lot of travel fatigue if we were to travel in and out when we’re still expected to go back the following week. We will be finding ourselves a very good camping place, so that we can be able to have a proper training programme on that side in preparation for the second match.”