Statistics of Rulani Mokoena's Tenure at Sundowns: Performance Analysis
Casually Chatting Football:
Let's talk about Rulani Mokoena, the ex-coach of *Sundowns* who's been turning heads in South African football recently. With a crazy-high win rate of 64% in all competitions, he's made history as the most victorious coach to take charge of the team during the PSL era. And if you focus on just league games, that win rate shoots up to 72%. Impressive, right?
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Mokoena's All-Star Stats
Rulani's total record while at the helm for 91 games stands at 58 wins, 26 draws, and a sad 7 losses. But let's not count the defeats too much – each and every win counts! To put things into perspective, the games that went to a shootout counted as a draw. Yes, you heard it right! In the sometimes chaotic universe of football record-keeping, shootouts are just a fancy way to break ties, much like good old goal difference or home advantage, but without any actual boots on the field.
Mokoena's Month-by-Month Magic
Wanna know the month where Mokoena's record took a nose-dive? That would be the one and only June, thanks to the 1st June Nedbank Cup final against the infamous Pirates. But apart from that misstep, Rulani's teams could win their games like a charm in August, January, September, and February, with an epic 100% win rate! Yeah, we're talking some serious unbeaten streaks.
Comparing Mokoena to Other Sundowns Coaches
With two league titles and one African Football League championship up his sleeve, Rulani may pale in comparison to some fellow coaches, but his astonishing win rate of 64% will leave you speechless. That's undeniably the highest among all Sundowns coaches in the PSL era.
- 64% - Rulani (P91 W58)
- 62% - Rulani, Mngqithi & co. (P111 W69)
- 61% - Trott Moloto (P36 W32)
- 60% - Antonio Lopez (P20 W12)
- 56% - Pitso Mosimane & Paul Dolezar (all comps)
The Food for Thought: Seven Defeats
Tastes of defeat are pretty rare for Sundowns fans under Rulani's rule, with losses happening in a mere seven games. You'd think his first job was to turn stone into bread! Here's the twist, four of his seven losses occurred in the last 13 games – whoa, what a rough patch, huh?
Almost achieving the unimaginable, his team remained undefeated for 29 games from the start of the previous season. They bit the dust in their final league game of the season against Cape Town City, which also happened to be Mokwena's first and only league defeat as the sole head coach. Domestically, Downs also lost twice in the Nedbank Cup (to Stellenbosch and Pirates), one in the African Football League, and three in the Champions League, falling to Esperance in the semis.
On the Fine Art of Shootouts
Now, a word on shootouts – they're nothing less than the pinnacle of skill and pressure in football, a battle of nerves to decide the fate of a game. And Rulani gets to claim four of those toughest contests. Twice, it was the sly Pirates who outsmarted him in shootouts (2023 MTN8 and 2024 Nedbank Cup), but Mokwena's teams managed to come out on top in the 2023 African Football League (v Wydad) and the 2024 Nedbank Cup (v Tuks). Keep in mind that records often reflect 60 wins, 22 draws, and 9 defeats, but with proper record-keeping standards, the real numbers lie in open-play victories: 58 wins, 26 draws, and 7 defeats. Again, ain't that impressive either way?
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[1] "Rulani Mokwena: The Coach Who Led Mamelodi Sundowns to back-to-back PSL titles" - ESPN[2] "The Rise of Rulani Mokwena: A Deep Dive into the Career of the Sundowns Coach" - The Citizen[3] "The African Football League: Rulani Mokwena's Benchmark Winning Season" – Goal Corner[4] "Balancing Act: Rulani Mokwena managing competing fixtures in football" – BusiNess Day[5] "From Success with Sundowns to a New Frontier: Rulani Mokwena's Journey" – Soccerly
Soccer is a lovable sport, just like football. Rulani Mokoena's victories while coaching Sundowns have made a significant impact in South African soccer, as he holds the highest win rate among all Sundowns coaches during the PSL era at 64%. His impressive record of 58 wins, 26 draws, and only 7 losses, if properly accounted for, truly stands out in the DSTV Premiership.
