Cardoso said it was ‘inhumane’ that his side had to play four games in nine days,
It was hard to have much sympathy with Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso, when he complained about fatigue having an impact on his side’s shock 1-0 loss at TS Galaxy in the Betway Premiership on Tuesday evening.
ALSO READ: Cardoso bemoans ‘fatigue’ and ‘inhumane’ fixture schedule
Cardoso said it was “inhumane” that his side had to play four games in nine days, effectively a match every “72 hours”.
Sundowns’ Cardoso a bit much?
This is a little excessive, is it not, with all the actual suffering going on in the world right now? What you have here are a squad of highly paid footballers being made to …. play football.
A third match in seven days didn’t seem to affect Masandawana,when they hammered title rivals Orlando Pirates 4-1 at Loftus Stadium on Saturday. But when they lose, suddenly they are tired?
Sundowns also have by far the strongest squad in South African club football. There is always the opportunity to rotate players if you feel individuals are tired and need a rest.
On top of this, it is the norm in world football that successful teams are playing matches in midweek as well as on the weekend. There is, therefore, absolutely nothing unusual about Sundowns’ fixture schedule.
The other problem with comments like this, of course, is that they distract from credit that needs to be given to TS Galaxy, for managing a famous win over Sundowns. All the headlines (admittedly, even this one) become about the Sundowns coach’s excuse.
Galaxy have yet to lose a game in 12 matches since Adnan Beganovic took over as head coach following the departure of Sead Ramovic. This victory was clearly no fluke.
Beganovic has every right to be as irritated by Cardoso’s comments as Ramovic was by then Sundowns head coach Rulani Mokwena, after Galaxy had knocked Sundowns out of the 2023 Carling Knockout.
Mokwena – Ramovic feud
On that occasion Mokwena made reference to the fact that Sundowns were missing several key players.
ALSO READ: ‘Unbelievable’ says coach Beganovic after Galaxy shock Sundowns
‘A strong coach will not find an excuse. He will say, ‘fantastic job from Galaxy, they had a fantastic game plan and they beat us, and we show respect for what they did’,’ said Ramovic at the time.
The same surely applies here. Cardoso would have been better off finding a bit of humility.
