Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso was delighted in the manner in which his side staged a fightback and romped home with a 3-1 victory over a determined Marumo Gallants in Bloemfontein on Wednesday night.
The defending league champions went down 1-0 in the early stages of the match, but they dusted themselves up in the second half and launched a dramatic fightback that resulted in them returning to Chloorkop with all the three points on offer.
They have now opened a 12-point gap at the top of the standings after Orlando Pirates’ game against Golden Arrows in Hammarsdale, KZN, was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch. Pirates, who are second on the Betway Premiership table, have three games in hand and will have to play serious catch up against Masandawana.
“I am satisfied about the game, and this was one of our best performances. In the first half, there was high rhythm and intensity. We provoked them and we knew we wanted to start strong with a high tempo and we played aggressively with high quality,” said Cardoso after the match.
“It was good first half, but we also had to cope with quick attacks that Marumo launched at us. They have good players, and we gave them space to attack us – but we managed them in a proper way, and we made one mistake, and it was a goal.
“We were playing good football and needed to continue playing in that way. During halftime I told them we needed to score one goal, and we will win the match – it happened that way and after the first goal, they lost capacity to focus. We insisted and insisted, and we won the game,” added the Portuguese coach.
Cardoso also expressed his concern about the number of red cards his team are getting. Goalkeeper Dennis Onyango became the seventh player to be sent off for an early shower. He received his first yellow card for time wasting and then got his marching orders after he blocked a goal-bound Gabadinho Mhango on the edge of the penalty box in the dying minutes of the game.
“The red cards are easily given to our players – I am not blaming Marumo, but the other teams are always stopping the game, they are wasting time. I think the red cards are becoming cheap for Sundowns. We had to put Thapelo [Morena] in the goals because he has had the experience of playing goalkeeper already. For six minutes, and we had to keep the ball longer and from then it was simple to manage the game and to keep the ball – it was not that difficult,” he addded.
