The future of George Maluleka at Mamelodi Sundowns may be under the spotlight, but the midfielder looks to be unconcerned, as he appears to be more driven than before.
Maluleka was granted a rare start against Al Merrikh in the CAF Champions League’s final Group A match on Saturday, and he delivered.
The former Kaizer Chiefs midfielder opened the scoring for Sundowns against Al Merrikh with a wonderful goal, his first for the club.
Maluleka had only two assists in the 15 games he had previously played for Sundowns after leaving Chiefs during the last two seasons.
And, given that this is Maluleka’s first goal, the technical staff at Sundowns may urge that he be kept beyond this season.
Sundowns co-coach Rhulani Mokwena had nothing but praise for Maluleka in February, claiming that he was on the verge of breaking into the starting lineup.
Despite his lack of playing time, especially this season, Mokwena praised Maluleka for his positive attitude and desire.
“You know, football is the funniest thing; a couple of months back, we were asked why Gaston Sirino is not playing. Gaston now comes onto the pitch and now we have to answer as to why George is not playing,” Mokwena told reporters at the time.
“Unfortunately, the laws of football only allow us to play eleven players, and fortunately, even now, the number of substitutions has increased from three to five. So, we can only incorporate 16 players.”
“We need a big squad because we are competitive in this space, where we are fighting on different fronts, and to fight on different fronts, you need as much depth, but you need quality in the numbers and that is what we have, including George Maluleka,” said Mokwena.
“I don’t think we all understand the difficulty to come to training every single day even knowing that the possibilities of you being in the starting eleven are very slim.
“At the end of the day we’ve got one principle and one principle alone and that is meritocracy,” he added.
“We try to put the best performing players in the starting eleven and when I say best performing players, I mean performing every single day at training, with the right sort of attitude, the right mentality, pushing and working extremely hard to improve each other. As they say iron sharpens iron.”
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