AmaZulu head coach Romain Folz has blamed the Carling Black Label Cup loss to Mamelodi Sundowns on fitness levels and says not even Pep Guardiola could have gotten the best out of his side.
The Durban outfit was hammered 3-0 in the first semi-final of the one-day tournament played at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday. Folz has attributed the loss to a lack of fitness from his side.
"I feel most of our players were not ready physically," he said post-match.
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"When you face a team that is good on the ball like that and makes you play right and left, and moves the ball very quickly and doesn't hold the ball too long, so they're always moving around.
"So you have a lot of runs to do off the ball, if you're not ready as much, I can give you the best instruction that I want, or it can come from Pep Guardiola if you want. If the engine is not responding, you're not going to do anything.
"So that's for me, that's biggest assessment. I knew that because that's the assessment that I had one week one.
"I knew that coming to face teams that are very much capable of moving the ball [quickly], at that moment in time, you [we] will struggle for sure."
"That's why I said, eight days into the job, that our biggest challenge will be to rebuild everyone physically."
Following the FIFA break to make way for the Qatar World Cup, AmaZulu will return to DStv Premiership action with an away trip to Stellenbosch on 31 December.
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