We would’ve preferred to lose in 90 minutes – Mngqithi

Manqoba Mngqithi could not hide his disappointment after Mamelodi Sundowns bombed out of the Nedbank Cup at the hands of top-flight rookies Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila on penalties on Sunday.

What frustrated Mngqithi the most is that the match went into extra-time and they still could not win it and he says he would have rather lost the match in regulation time as the extra 30 minutes have added unnecessary mileage on the already overloaded players.

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The semifinal tie was Sundowns’ third game this past week having played against Chippa United on Monday and drubbed Orlando Pirates 4-1 on Thursday evening. What TTM did was to prove that Sundowns can be outplayed in certain periods of the match and can be made to chase for the ball as the Venda-based side had their fair share of dominance at Loftus Versfeld. It was the second time that Downs have failed to score at home against Tshakhuma as they played to a goalless draw at the start of the season.

“We are all devastated and we wish things could have turned out differently but we fully understand what is expected of us,” said Mngqithi.

“If we knew we were going to lose it would have been better to lose in the 90 minutes considering that our program has got so much and we have another big match on Wednesday. Our players know they have a responsibility in all the fixtures and we are playing all of these matches because of their success. If it wasn’t for that we would be playing so many games.

Sundowns will need to quickly lick their wounds as they prepare to fly down to Durban and take on a high-flying AmaZulu side in the DStv Premiership this Wednesday. Six points separate the two sides who played to a crazy 4-3 thriller in favour of Downs in the first round.

“We know what is going to happen in Durban, it is not going to be an easy one. Our rehabilitation and conditioning team will make sure that our players are in the good space to go to AmaZulu and deliver what is expected of them.”