Nedbank Cup: Kaizer Chiefs' offside goal sunk Sundowns – Cardoso

Photo Credit - Mamelodi Sundowns FC.

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has hit out at officiating following their 2-1 defeat against rivals Kaizer Chiefs in Sunday's semifinal fixture from the Nedbank Cup at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria.

In the entertaining clash, Ashley Du Preez came off the bench to score a dramatic last minute winner as Chiefs came from behind to defeat the Brazilians. Amakhosi went into the halftime break with a goal down, after Teboho Mokoena scored from a free kick in stoppage time of a very evenly matched first 45 minutes.

However, their persistence paid off in the second half, first through Wandile Duba’s composed finish in the 57th minute and right at the death, from an equally well-taken goal from Du Preez.

“Nothing came out from there, we controlled it completely and then it was obvious then comes a goal that is offside, I think you all saw, if you didn’t go back and look at it because it’s clear, clear, clear,” said Cardoso after the game as quoted by idiskitimes.

“When we work in a country that doesn’t have VAR, that is what happens, but just go back, take the images from the TV and there’s a team that loses this competition from a mistake from the referee, I think we’re penalised enough through this season, regarding refs mistakes.”

On the first goal, Cardoso blames his players by saying: “It’s clear, we cannot run away from it, a mistake, individual mistake that led to the 1-1 result, and for all of you if you are fair enough, that the game would go on until the end without any capacity from Chiefs to change the direction of the game. Anyway, football is like that, the mistake was capitalised and games are sometimes decided on details and today the detail came for the opponent, came from a mistake for the equaliser. But we don’t kill anyone, we give a hand to the player and play to solve problems.

So that’s what the team did, obviously it’s not easy to receive a goal like that and reaction but I think the team reacted and we kept the intention to score the second goal, we kept ourselves in the game, we kept giving stimulus to the players, coping with substitutions from Chiefs that also just wanted to play long balls in the spaces.”

He concluded: “We win together, we lose together but we should have done more, nothing to say about Chiefs, they fought for this game, congrats to them and to their coach for the result, we just regret we could not do more but it’s clear we’re out of the competition.”

Amakhosi are now set up for a mouthwatering Soweto Derby final against Orlando Pirates at Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban on 10 May, just one step away from finally getting their hands on silverware.