Mamelodi Sundowns coach applauds Kaizer Chiefs for tactical battle

By Mazola Molefe
2nd March 2025

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso says Kaizer Chiefs took advantage of their fatigue state and put up a fight at the Lucas Moripe Stadium despite losing the Betway Premiership clash 1-0.

Downs had to rely on the individual brilliance of talisman Lucas Ribeiro to riffle home what was eventually the winning goal in the first half.

Cardoso had warned in the build-up to the match that their visitors from Soweto would be no slouches on the day.

The Portuguese mentor believes Chiefs gave them a tactical battle

"As expected, and as we spoke maybe some of you were not in the pre-match conference, sometimes these matches are not the ones that in terms of the tactical side of the game are not the beautiful ones let's say but the other side, sometimes these matches are very, very interesting in the tactical side of the question, the strategical side of the game,” Cardoso said.

“I think that's what we saw today. Wonderful ambience and respect between the parties but not a very beautiful match the way it was played but very interesting in terms of the tactical approach that happened during the game.

“Obviously, I speak about myself, I had hard work today not only to prepare the match because as you know we had 68 hours between the start of the previous one and the beginning of this one.

“So, a big challenge to prepare the match but also a big challenge to put in practice what we wanted."

READ: Godfrey Sapula to coach Sundowns Ladies in absence of suspended Jerry Tshabalala

While Chiefs had a little under two weeks to prepare for the fixture, Cardoso argued they were running on fumes at times following their trip back from Polokwane to face Sekhukhune United three days earlier.

"The fatigue was clear on our players today, absolutely clear. The way we played was conditioned a lot by the capacity that we could not sustain in terms of intensity of freshness because fatigue is not only physical, it comes here [mental],” he explained.

“So, then the decision making sometimes was not the best but hard times demand extreme measures and I told the team that as a team we could win the match and that's what we did."