Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso explained why he decided to replace Tashreeq Matthews with Jayden Adams in the first half.
Cardoso fielded quite an attacking XI, with Lucas Ribeiro Costa, Iqraam Rayners, Arthur Sales and Matthews all in the line-up.
However, with his side somewhat struggling to gain control of the match, he opted for an early sub in the 37th minute – with Cardoso stating he wanted to react early in the match before it’s too late.
“Obviously that a 1-0 result is not the same as a 1-1 result, but, but the game is just a half-time, so out of four parts, we still have two to play, and it will to be a different game,” he told reporters.
“I think that with a high pressure that Pyramids put it on us, on the game in the beginning, we had some difficulties to cope with it in order to play the game we wanted. But also because our position was not the best on the pitch.
“I could have waited a little bit, but I decided to change immediately the during the first half in order to try to rebalance the team and cope with the kind of game that was being played on the pitch, and to have mostly the capacity to have more ball and to then approach ourselves in the control of the game.
“I think that it was clear that the intention went through, and we we started the second half, finished the first one better, and start the second one off very well.”
Cardoso also admitted that his team took the foot off the gas a bit too much after scoring and committed several mistakes in Pyramids’ late equaliser.
“After we scored the goal, I think the team, emotionally, I will not say broke down, because it’s not exactly that that happened, but the team eventually started thinking more about conserving the result rather than going for a second goal.
“We were, we were asking to try to play, to play, to play, to play as much as possible because we think that is the way you should defend the result is to go, keep the ball, go for the game and and manage it.
“Anyway. There were not situations, I think the best situation for Pyramids were even in the first half. But unfortunately, from the play where we make not one, but several mistakes, one minute to go – we have the ball, we lose the ball in such a way that is not obviously the best. And from there, there’s a cross…
“We were more than alert regarding crosses on the box, mostly when Pyramids is losing games, they put players in the box a lot of numbers, so that we had to cope with these crosses. But coping with them is avoiding them.
“And we let the cross be made, and then the defensive positioning also on the box, allows the goal. Of course, that now there’s only one thing to do is pick the attitude, go there. We have more than capacity to score one goal, and from there, put the game on our side, the final, and then go from there.”
Sundowns now need a high-scoring draw or win in Cairo next week to lift their second CAFCL trophy.
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