Mamelodi Sundowns goalkeeper Denis Onyango says his next objective is to win the Caf Champions League title after they were crowned 2021 MTN8 champions this past Saturday.
The 36-year-old proved to be the difference in the final, making five penalty saves to help Sundowns secure a 3-2 win on penalties after a 1-1 draw after extra time at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.
After Peter Shalulile slotted in his penalty, Onyango made the final save to deny Cape Town City captain Thamsanqa Mkhize winning the title for the club for the first time since 2007.
“We do a lot of work behind the scenes, it’s the job of the analysts to give us the opposition’s penalty statistics delivered through the goalkeeper coach,” Onyango told his club’s official website.
“I had a chat with the coach just before the shootout, I knew a few of them and I had to use my instincts as well, but it’s a lot of work that we put in, you need to watch a lot of penalties [to understand] which foot they are going to use and how they stand and all these things.”
He added: “Every trophy is special but this one has been away for a very long time. Someone told me that I am lucky [to have] No 14 as my jersey number. It’s been 14 years since Sundowns won the MTN8 and probably the ‘football gods’ made it possible, but it was a good fight from the boys, we kept on believing even when we missed the first two penalties, we knew that we need to stay focused and until the last whistle.”
“I have to also reward the goalkeepers because they’ve been doing a great job, since the MTN8 tournament started Kennedy [Mweene] played and did well, Reeyad [Pieterse] did well and so did [Ricardo] Goss when he came on, so it was my chance to reward them and make it possible for the team to win the trophy. For me, I think this was a good one for me because I’ve never won it, I’ve lost it a couple of times.”
Sundowns have now won every piece of silverware on offer on the domestic front after bagging the top-eight title, and Onyango has now turned his focus to conquering the Caf Champions League trophy.
“Personally, I want to win the Caf Champions League and that’s also the objective of the club. It’s a big thing to win the Champions League,” he added.
“I’d like to be the first Ugandan to win it twice, so it’s the big one that we are really looking at, but we first have to collect the ones that are in front of us because they give us momentum going forward.”
The Uganda shotstopper concluded by thanking the club’s supporters at the stadium: “We have really missed seeing our fans in the stadiums, it was amazing to see some of them back, of course, it was not the numbers that we really wanted, but we need to follow the protocols.
“For me, seeing the supporters, we had to reward them. We hope that we will see them in some time to come because football is beautiful with the supporters. The more that we vaccinate, the more we get more numbers in the stadiums. It was very beautiful to see them and to celebrate with them this magnificent trophy after 14 years.”
