Facing his former club at Loftus Versfeld, Mokwena admitted that arriving in Pretoria needing at least a point against a Sundowns side playing with confidence was always going to be extremely difficult. He said the decisive damage had been done weeks earlier.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not get knocked out today. If you review our Champions League participation, we maybe let it go when we were away in Rwanda,\u201d he said. MC Alger fought back from a goal down to level the match, but conceded late to lose 2\u20131. \u201cWhen you have a point away in the Champions League, it is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mokwena said his side failed again to take advantage at home against Sundowns, where they created several chances but settled for a draw. \u201cIt is important to win your home matches in the Champions League, and we took one point when we could have taken three. That would have made a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He also pointed to the goalless draw against Lupopo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where MC Alger conceded a late penalty. \u201cWe could have done better. Even after reviewing the game, I do not know how much of a penalty that should have been.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mokwena insisted that the final group match was not the decisive factor. \u201cIf you review how we have done this season, and we have spoken about this, I do not think this was the game that got us knocked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Asked whether the early exit might affect his future at the club, Mokwena said the decision was not his to make. \u201cI do not know, that is up to the club. I am focused on what is left of the season. That question is not within my control.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MC Alger will now shift their attention to domestic competitions as it looks to salvage their campaign after a disappointing continental run.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–SABC\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23794,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-23793","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Algeria's MC Alger coach Rulani Mokwena says his team\u2019s CAF Champions League elimination was not decided by Saturday\u2019s 2\u20130 defeat to South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns, but by earlier missed opportunities in the group stage.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Algeria's MC Alger coach Rulani Mokwena says his team\u2019s CAF Champions League elimination was not decided by Saturday\u2019s 2\u20130 defeat to South Africa's Mamelodi Sundowns, but by earlier missed opportunities in the group stage.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26656,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23793\/revisions\/26656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}