Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has been frustrated by the number of games his club has had to play. Photo: BackpagePix
Image: Backpagepix
Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has once again complained about fixture congestion with games piling up for the Betway Premiership champions.
Last week, Cardoso had a few days to prepare his team for their Nedbank Cup quarter-final against Sekhukhune United following the international break where a number of his players were involved.
Jayden Adams scored the only goal of the game as Sundowns beat Sekhukhune in extra time to advance to the semi-finals. During the international break, Adams featured – and scored – in both World Cup qualifiers as Bafana Bafana beat Lesotho and Benin.
Sundowns will again be in action on Tuesday when they face Cardoso’s former team Esperance in the first leg of the CAF Champions League quarter-finals, giving them just four days to recover and prepare for the clash.
“If I was the coach of any team, or any coach playing an international match, champions league match, we represent South Africa, not just the club,” Cardoso said, according to iDiskiTimes.
“I think it’s important that people who rule the football in South Africa have the capacity to understand that we should be provided the best conditions possible to compete, as you know we will face a team where I worked last year and this season.
“I know how they prepare Champions League, they do everything in the country so the teams in Tunisia can play in the best conditions, they played 10 days ago, even the national team didn’t have Esperance players.
“They had Elias [Mokwana] with the national team of South Africa, Youcef Belaili for the Algeria national team and Konate for the U20 of Côte d’Ivoire, but this has nothing to do with them… they played their last match when we played our last league game.”
Cardoso added it was important to give players who were involved in the international window some time off in order to recuperate.
Sundowns will host Esperance in their Champions League clash at Loftus on Tuesday. Kick off is at 3pm.
IOL Sport