Reigning DStv Premiership champions Sundowns have been one of the active teams in the January transfer window after completing deals to sign Teboho Mokoena from SuperSport United and Bradley Ralani from Cape Town City.
In the case of the latter, question marks have been asked of the club's decision to sign a player who is already 34-years-old but co-coach Rulani Mokwena has revealed that the decision was comprehensively guided by data.
"Ralani's recruitment raises a lot of question marks, particularly because of his age, [but] in football, the most important thing in recruitment is to always try to bring in the right player," Mokwena explained.
"Sometimes the right player is not the player between a certain age. The right player is sometimes [recruited] because of the needs of the team.
"How do you improve the quality and the strength of the team? There are two ways. One is by training, to use the players you have to improve certain aspects and improve the different components of the team.
"Secondly, you can do it by recruiting players and we decided to go in that direction because of the profile of Ralani. If you look at Ralani in terms of his contribution to Cape Town City, and you make a direct comparison between his profile and the average quality in the PSL and availability in the market.
"You also look at what you have in relation to the direction you want the team to move to. You begin with the end in mind trying to make sure that the team is ready for the Champions League. There are certain parameters that the team has got to meet and you are trying to make sure that it is competitive on all fronts.
"Ralani is what you would call an outlier. His numbers suggest that there is a huge difference between him and the average performances in the PSL," Mokwena added, explaining in detail how the veteran compares to players of a similar profile in the league.
..."His numbers clearly suggested that he is a player who can come in and immediately contribute to improving the squad. [He is a player] with the right player, who has the right qualities from a technical and tactical perspective, the data suggests that already..."
