Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has insisted individual mistakes cost his side in their Nedbank Cup defeat to TS Galaxy on Saturday.
Masandawana will finish another season without a domestic cup trophy after being knocked out of the Ke Yona Cup by the Rockets, who won 2-0 at Solomon Mahlangu Stadium.
Cardoso made a host of changes to his starting line-up, with 10 new players coming compared to their 2-1 win at Orlando Pirates in midweek, but insisted silly mistakes cost his team.
“The most important thing is that in a game like this there is no recover from it,” he told SuperSport TV.
“You cannot put yourself into 2-0 like we did. I remember last year in the semi-final of this cup, we were winning 1-0 against Chiefs and we allowed them to score…
“And today is unbelievable, we give the ball [away] for the goal and then we also suffer a penalty which is completely avoidable.
“The story of the game is exactly that, we go down 2-0 and had to recover from that. We created four very good chances, but we don’t score. If we had scored one goal, the energy will be completely different.
“We only have ourselves to blame.”
When asked whether his line-up changes worked out as he had planned, Cardoso again put the blame on the individuals.
“The goals that we suffered have nothing to do with the line-up, it’s based on individual mistakes,” he explained.
“The only thing we can now do is time to go home, rest please and obviously understand who’s able to be on the level of those matches or not.
“Because we cannot make those mistakes, it doesn’t mean that everything is wrong – it’s not. It’s just the evaluation that we need to do.
“We need to go beyond that but we also need to understand who deserves these opportunities that we’re giving them.”
Sundowns return to action onTuesday when they will face AmaZulu in the Betway Premiership.
