Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso insists that with VAR, Kaizer Chiefs' goal in the Nedbank Cup semi-final shouldn't have stood.
Masandawana started the game on a high, and were rewarded with a 1-0 half-time lead thanks to a good goal from Teboho Mokoena, who beat Bruce Bvuma with a well-taken free-kick. However, Wandile Duba and Ashley du Preez scored the two second-half goals that gave the Glamour Boys a final ticket.
Nevertheless, the defending Premier Soccer League champions' tactician Cardoso believes Du Preez was in an offside position. The Portuguese argues that the country needs to get the technology to help referees reduce mistakes, especially in high profile matches.
Sundowns have been penalised enough – Cardoso
“When we work in a country that doesn’t have VAR, that is what happens, but just go back, take the images from the TV and there’s a team that loses this competition from a mistake from the referee, I think we’re penalised enough through this season, regarding refs mistakes,” he said in a presser.
“I remember goals scored, in games we didn’t win away, Peter scored more than one goal and today we’re out the competition, four minutes from the end with an off-side goal, it is what it is – we need to stand up.
“We win together, we lose together, but we should have done more, nothing to say about Chiefs, they fought for this game, congrats to them and to their coach for the result, we just regret we could not do more but it's clear we’re out of the competition.
“We still had 30 minutes to play and a long story to be written, but there was no time to write the last chapter of this book, it is what it is, we keep the story like it was,” he stated.
Chiefs were playing long balls in spaces
“It’s clear, we cannot run away from it, a mistake, individual mistake that led to the 1-1 result, and for all of you if you are fair enough, that the game would go on until the end without any capacity from Chiefs to change the direction of the game,” Cardosos said regarding the game.
“Anyway, football is like that, the mistake was capitalised and games are sometimes decided on details and today the detail came for the opponent, came from a mistake for the equaliser. But we don’t kill anyone; we give a hand to the player and play to solve problems.
“So that’s what the team did, obviously it’s not easy to receive a goal like that and reaction but I think the team reacted and we kept the intention to score the second goal, we kept ourselves in the game, we kept giving stimulus to the players, coping with substitutions from Chiefs that also just wanted to play long balls in the spaces,” he concluded.
Nabi and Sundowns focus is on the Caf Champions League and the Premier Soccer League.
