Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has hit back at claims he’s a ‘defensive’ coach and stated they did well considering eight first team players were unavailable.
Sundowns maintained their lead at the summit of the league, by three points, with Orlando Pirates holding two games in hand after their 1-1 draw at Loftus Versfeld.
Peter Shalulile opened the scoring but a stunner from 20-year-old Camren Dansin levelled the scored before the break and Cardoso says they showed character to try and win the game in the second half.
“You are looking the other way, not just one side, and I agree with that, we wanted to win, if you were in my locker room at half time you will understand how much I pushed these guys to win this much, there’s no other mentality in myself,” Cardoso said.
“Despite people say, you’re a defensive coach, that’s bullsh*t – so what I mean, it’s not true, we wanted to win the match and at half-time I was very hard on my players in terms of mindset, in terms of attitude, because for this match we had an expression all week.
“Nobody kills an attitude, and at half-time I said, is that the attitude nobody is able to kill, the one we had when we conceded a goal, because I was a little bit of ‘what is in your mind guys’ after you suffer a goal.
“Do you want to be brave or do you want to feel fear, because if you want to feel fear you won’t play at the level, you have to play – if you’re brave you can go for the match, to win it and I think they were brave, they fought.
“So when you have Themba Zwane, Mothobi Mvala, Thapelo Morena, Miguel Reisinho, Teboho Mokoena, Divine Lunga, Kutlwano, Malibongwe and you still have the kids studying their exams, obviously the team is not on the same level.
“But I don’t complain because what I saw from my players was character – so I go along with what you said, I think we saw character, we could have done better? Yes, do we believe we will do better? Yes but probably two of the best teams were on the pitch [of South Africa.”
Sundowns now turn their attention to TS Galaxy, who they host in mid-week at Loftus Versfeld.