By
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso believes their MTN8 exit can be partly attributed to Orlando Pirates being sharper and further along in their preparations for the new season.
The Soweto giants booked their place in the final after edging Sundowns on penalties, keeping their hopes alive of defending the title. Pirates will now face Stellenbosch FC in a repeat of last year’s decider.
Despite scoring first in both legs of the semifinal, Sundowns let their advantage slip on each occasion, allowing Pirates to claw their way back and force the tie into a shoot-out.
Cardoso admitted his side is still searching for rhythm, while acknowledging the Buccaneers’ superior fluidity on the pitch.
"If you wanna make a serious analysis on the question that you are asking me, maybe you'll find together with me the proper answer. You know how many weeks of preparations Orlando Pirates had? I'm asking you if you have any idea how many weeks of preparation Orlando Pirates had? You know how many matches Orlando Pirates has played?” Cardoso asked.
“The fact is everyone expected that because we didn't line up some players on Wednesday today we will be much stronger and that will be shown throughout the match in terms of physically, the question is that we tried or my players tried but also it's clear we saw on the pitch normal mistakes on simple passing because you know that fatigue is not a physical thing, it's a brain thing.
“It neurotical thing and because of fatigue, we made much more mistakes. That's why you didn't see the same fluidity in our game as usual, it's clear, not only because it's a very high demanding, two very high demanding matches from the beginning to the end where the rhythm was very strong."
The Portuguese mentor says his charges are not at the level where they can cope with successive high intensity fixtures.
"In the moment we are not able to do much more than that, it's important to understand. We have not many matches played, we have three matches in the league, three matches in the competition, our pre-season we played two matches and Orlando Pirates, while we were playing the World Cup and still when we were in the World Cup Orlando Pirates were already in the preparation for this season,” the coach explained.
“It means that we're a little bit late compared to the other teams and we know that, so we know that we are not in a place where we'd like to be to play such matches but I don't think that anyone can complain about the effort of my players.
“On the intention to keep the game where we'd like to play it, more consistently, more regularly with more quality but unfortunately because we also struggle and we're developing, we see that some players are still not as free, as fluid as normal but it has absolutely to do with that.
“They didn't rest much, they didn't make a lot of preparation, so it means that we are still trying to manage, at the same time we play very hard matches, we are still trying to manage even the rest of the players.
“It's quite tricky, very difficult, we know that everybody would like us to give 3-0 to Orlando Pirates from the fans of Sundowns, I also would like to play with more freedom, to see the players gel more quickly, more reactive, more predictable but it's not like that."
16_181x188.webp "sipho-chaine-penalty-save-(pa-images)16.webp")
