Mamelodi Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi believes topping Group B in the Caf Champions League could have been a disadvantage.

Masandawana collected 13 points to finish ahead of CR Belouizdad and were paired against defending champions Al Ahly in the quarter-finals who eventually claimed a 3-1 aggregate win to seal their spot in the final four. 

The experienced coach believes finishing second in the group would have impacted his team positively in the quarters.

“The lessons are a tough one because one of them we learned in the quarter-finals of the Champions League is that when you are fighting very hard to top the group, which sounds like an advantage that you will go and play your first leg away from home, it is not always the best,” Mngqithi said in a recent interview.

“Maybe being second [in the group] is always better because when you are playing your first match at home, the opposition, when they play the second game, is always going to be difficult.”

The 50-year-old went on to compare when Masandawana played the first leg at home against the Red Devils in 2019.

“If you remember, even when we beat Al Ahly, the first match was here, and we won 5-0. But when we went away, we struggled to beat them,” Mngqithi continued.

Because of these back-to-back matches, when you start at home, it looks like you stand a chance of going through.

“If you can check, we topped the group, we are out. Simba topped the group, they are out. Maybe it’s sending the message that this fight to top the group so that we can play away first is not always beneficial. Maybe we must try to fight to be at home first, where there are no permutations. You are just fighting to win the match, and the next game away, you are trying to consolidate what you have.”

The South African is now aiming at performing better with the team, especially in the last eight, if recent experience is anything to go by.

“The truth of the matter is that in the past three seasons we had stiff competition in [the] quarter-finals. If you remember, we’ve played Al Ahly now three times in a row, and it’s proven to be one team. We’ve struggled to go beyond. We managed the first time around, and we had Wydad [Casablanca] after that.

“When Wydad took us out, they went on to win it. Al Ahly, when they took us out, they went all the way to win it. So it tells you that we’re competing at a level where now it’s about breaking through to the top four.”