Cardoso calls for lessons to be learned after Sundowns suffer MTN8 semi-final defeat

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso said his players must learn from costly lapses in concentration after the African champions lost 1-0 to Golden Arrows in the first leg of their MTN8 semi-final on Sunday afternoon.

Sundowns made a promising start at the beginning of the match, but the forced substitution of Golden Arrows goalkeeper Edward Maova, who was replaced by Thakasani Mbanjwa, disrupted the rhythm of the contest. Cardoso felt that interruption affected his side more than their opponents.

The result leaves Sundowns with a difficult task in next week’s second leg against Abafana Besthende. They must win by at least two clear goals to remain in the competition and secure a place in the final.

“I think we had a good start, first 20 minutes until the substitution of the goalkeeper from Golden Arrows, it took a little bit of the rhythm of the game. We were ok seven minutes to make a substitution and then we fell asleep, we fell asleep until halftime,” Cardoso told SuperSport TV.

The coach said Sundowns’ defensive error was similar to one that contributed to their defeat by Kaizer Chiefs. He criticised the team for losing possession, failing to maintain its rest-defence shape and allowing Golden Arrows to exploit the resulting space.

“Completely asleep and out of a mistake similar to the one we did in the match against Chiefs where we see we lose the ball and out of position for the rest-defence and we still make a mistake by dropping a player in the front and we suffered a goal.

“And it’s time to learn how to deal with these situations obviously, otherwise you cannot continue to dominate the game and suffer from a simple action. Two times they were able to counter-attack.

“And two times they were able to enter the box to take danger and the story of the game is creating opportunities one after the other and the goalkeeper very well that did very well.

“They weren’t able to oppose to our target; we also didn’t manage to get a lot of shots on target as we could because they defended very well and halftime of the match let’s second half when we go to Arrows what would have,” he added.

Cardoso acknowledged that Golden Arrows defended effectively, while Sundowns were unable to turn their attacking dominance into enough attempts on target. The home side created opportunities but could not find a way past the goalkeeper, leaving themselves needing a strong response in the return fixture.

However, the coach said Sundowns would not yet focus solely on the MTN8 second leg. Their immediate priority is a midweek Betway Premiership match against AmaZulu, which comes before the return meeting with Golden Arrows.

“First of all, we have to think about the match with AmaZulu and then we going to see. It’s important to understand that this team is resting for one week, he played three days ago, we’re going to play again, they’re going to rest again to play against us so it’s what it is let’s see how we arrive there and then think about. Now we need to think about AmaZulu,” Cardoso stated.