Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso said taking off Lucas Suarez for Thapelo Morena was tactical; to change two positions with one substitution.
Suarez was having a day to forget, struggling to cope with the pace and physicality of Evidence Makgopa at times and was directly involved with both goals conceded with Relebohile Mofokeng netting two goals in the opening five minutes.
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However, the Argentine was his usual self in terms of his contribution in distribution and controlling the pace of their build up.
“The thinking was that… also coach Riveiro was making substitutions to have freshness, to deal with these quick attacks, to impose, to threaten us, to search for goals, and having a fresh player would give us a fresher, quicker player in defence,” Cardoso said.
“That can also play with quality; we needed a player who could build up with quality and with speed and with one substitution we could do both things, as I wanted freshness on the right flank.
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“I think we were not very clever using Thapelo because during the second half, after he went in, we weren’t very quick in changing from one side to the other side of the pitch. That’s also why I said we lost capacity to think in the last ten minutes.
“Instead of taking out a centre-back for centre-back, taking out full-back for full-back, with one substitution we got what we wanted, with quality.”
The 29-year-old Suarez has featured nine times for Sundowns, scoring once, since his season-long loan from CA Tallares which has an option to make the deal permanent.
