Sundowns’ Cardoso bemoans fatigue and ‘inhumane’ fixture schedule

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has labelled their fixture schedule as inhumane following the narrow 1-0 loss to TS Galaxy in a Betway Premiership match on Tuesday night. The Brazilians came into the match high on confidence after their 4-1 over Orlando Pirates last Saturday.

However, they were brought down to earth by The Rockets at Mbombela Stadium with Kamogelo Sebelebele scoring the only goal of the match late in the first half. The fixture congestion has seen Masandawana play four league matches in nine days.

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Cardoso put their loss to Galaxy down to fatigue and bemoaned the turnaround time between the match against the Buccaneers at Loftus Versfeld and the trip to Mbombela. 

“I emphasise that the players gave their best but they could not do more. It was inhumane to play a fourth match in 72 hours,” Cardoso said. 

“We were not able to define the game in moments where we could’ve scored there weren’t many moments but the ones we had, we hit the post with Lucas (Ribeiro) and it could have changed the game but we didn’t. The setback at halftime was hard to come back from.

“I tried to change the team to give new energy to the players but I felt that in the second half, the team was completely off in terms of proper energy. Even the approach from a technical approach was not the best because of the fatigue and neurologically, the players were at their limit for sure. They wanted it but they could not do it.”

The Tshwane giants will have to dust themselves off ahead of Sunday’s last 16 Nedbank Cup tie against Mpheni Home Defenders. which has now been moved to Lucas Moripe Stadium due to the damaged pitch at Loftus.

“There’s only one thing to do, it’s to look forward, rest and recover. We were not the best team in the world after the last match and we are of course not in the opposite position now,” said Cardoso. 

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“We just have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to have a schedule like this. Now, it’s important to recover the players for the conditions at the weekend and give them some air to recover emotionally from this setback. We will come back even stronger for sure.”