Cardoso slams ‘catastrophic’ Loftus pitch

“This pitch is becoming worse and worse. It was okay in the last champions league match,” Cardoso said.

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has slammed the state of the Loftus Versfeld pitch following his side’s 3-1 win over Marumo Gallants in a Betway Premiership clash on Tuesday night.

The Brazilians share the Tshwane venue with rugby outfit the Blue Bulls, who hosted the Stormers in a United Rugby Championship match last Saturday, a day after Sundowns entertained Stade Malien.

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Sundowns returned to the traditional rugby stadium four days after their 3-0 first-leg quarter-final win over the Malians, but the pitch showed visible wear, much to the frustration of the Portuguese coach.

“This pitch is becoming worse and worse. It was okay in the last champions league match but today [Tuesday] it appeared very bad,” Cardoso said.

“I know there was a rugby match after our Champions League match and this pitch is catastrophic. It doesn’t help us to sustain the level of the game that we want and that’s something that we know.

“But we can’t complain because what we did, it had nothing to do with the pitch but what we did is that we showed character and that’s why we got the victory.”

The match went into the break level at 1-1 before Teboho Mokoena came off the bench to net a second-half brace and seal the victory for Sundowns.

“Despite being happy, the game was not good technically at all. We saw a big fight in terms of understanding what to do in every moment in the second half,” Cardoso concluded.

“That makes me happy and of course technically, it was not the best game because after the first 15 minutes, the game looked very easy where there were a lot of spaces that we could penetrate. The players took it that maybe it’ll be too easy but in life nothing is granted.

“When you feel that there’s an opportunity, you have to increase the intensity and fight as hard as you can. When you play a game in between two legs of the Champions League, it’s a little bit taxing. In the middle of all this, I think we have to be satisfied with our objective being accomplished by getting three points.”

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For now, Cardoso will be happy that he won’t play at least until April 11 when they host Stellenbosch FC in a league encounter after the FIFA break. However, the Bulls will have hosted Cardiff and Munster in two United Rugby Championship matches in that period.