OPINION: Sundowns and Chiefs come up with some awful excuses after MTN8 exits

There was plenty of room for ‘bad loser’ tendencies and poor excuses this weekend as Mamelodi Sundowns and Kaizer Chiefs were booted out of the MTN8.

ALSO READ: Mngqithi says Sundowns could benefit from Pirates loss

Embracing the role with the most gusto was (at the time) Sundowns co-head coach Manqoba Mngqithi, who went on a bitter rant about match officials after his team had been thumped 3-0 in Polokwane by Orlando Pirates.

It is unlikely that this rant ultimately led to Mngqithi’s demotion to ‘senior coach’ at Sundowns on Monday, but in hindsight it certainly gives a clear indication that something was up with the 51 year-old.

Mngqithi, among other things, was upset that Kermit Erasmus was not booked after taking off his shirt, having given Pirates the lead against his old club.

Now, this may be technically correct – Erasmus should probably have been booked – but it had zero impact on the outcome of the game.

He was also upset that Sundowns hadn’t been given a goal kick, when the ball looked close to being out of play as Monnapule Saleng crossed for Erasmus to score.

This, however, was marginal and only a VAR Check conclusively have proved it either way.

We don’t have that in South Africa, so it was another pointless comment.

There was more, as Mngqithi berated a lack of punishment for Pirates time-wasting and had a general go at match officiating in the country.

Refereeing levels are not exactly sky-high, but again, this seemed more about the Sundowns coach doing his best to deflect from the truth of the day – that Sundowns just were not up to it and were taken apart by a more clinical Pirates.

Some of the best coaches in the game have been known to be awful losers – Pitso Mosimane, Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson, to name just three.

If you are used to winning, as those three, and Sundowns are, it can make defeat even more difficult to take. It can also be a deliberate tactic, a deflection while the honest introspection takes place in camp.
But to externalise this kind of nonsense for that purpose still seems silly.

Arthur Zwane wasn’t really a bad loser, after Chiefs went out to AmaZulu, meanwhile, but his main excuse was laughable. He said that Chiefs had paid for not taking their chances in the first leg, which finished in a 1-1 draw in Johannesburg.

Ok, so we can forget about the fact that Chiefs still had 90 minutes to score, as it turned out, just one more goal in Durban in the second leg?

They didn’t get that goal and AmaZulu did exactly what they had to to grab a place in the final.

Zwane’s tenure is not quite at the point where his future comes under question, but Chiefs have dipped back into barren patch after they seemed to have turned the corner, with three league wins in a row.

This (the MTN8) is another trophy they cannot win and defeat to Pirates on Saturday in the Soweto derby will only ramp up the pressure on “10111”. If they do lose, one certainly hopes the Amakhosi head coach comes up with a better excuse than Sunday’s.