MIDFIELD MACHINE

Teboho Mokoena has been a star for Mamelodi Sundowns this season, and the player says there is more to come from him

- Mazola Molefe

By the time Teboho Mokoena joined Mamelodi Sundowns at the beginning of last year, he was already a full Bafana Bafana international and had been to both the youth World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations.

To round off his spell with the junior national teams, the Bethlehem-born midfielder was part of coach David Notoane's Team SA Olympic Games squad in 2021.

A lot of us would have considered that an impressive pedigree, more than deserving of a move to Sundowns, where he would almost immediately make the starting line-up - especially given reports that the Brazilians paid double figures to get him to switch across from Tshwane rivals SuperSport United.

But he found the going tough.

"I struggled a bit with the intensity when I got here," Mokoena, who was responsible for most of his former side's build-up attacks, says.

"To be honest, I didn't actually understand the culture very well. When we went into the off season, I spoke a lot with the coaches and conditioning trainers. They gave me my stats [from January to May] on where I needed to improve. I went home to work on that so that I come back a better player it worked for me."

Sundowns, the reigning DStv Premiership champions and winners of the competition an incredible five times in a row, have standards their Premier Soccer League counterparts are struggling to keep up with.