BROUGHT down to earth with a thud at Mbombela Stadium, where they lost 1-0 to TS Galaxy on Tuesday night, Mamelodi Sundowns will have to dust themselves off and quickly ready themselves for Sunday’s Nedbank Cup last-16 clash against lower division side Mpheni Home Defenders.
And coach Miguel Cardoso is confident that his team will put the setback behind them and return an even stronger side for the lessons leant from the Galaxy defeat, which set them back a little in their hunt for an eighth successive league title.
Sundowns had smashed Orlando Pirates 4-1 at the weekend, and were expected to increase their lead atop the Premiership table by a further three points when they made the trip to Mpumalanga for a clash against a team they generally get the better of.
But Kamogelo Sebelebele scored on the stroke of halftime, and The Rockets held on for a famous victory as they stretched their unbeaten run in the league since Adnan Beganovic took over to 11 matches.
Sundowns, on the other hand, suffered only their second defeat of the campaign, and the first under Cardoso’s tutelage.
The Portuguese took the loss on the chin, and acknowledged the opponents for their aggressive play, while praising his team for their efforts under difficult circumstances.
“The players gave their best today... nothing (else) to say,” Cardoso said.
“It is not a matter of them being on the limit, but they could not do more... it was inhumane to play a fourth match in 72 hours.
“We wanted to start a strong game. I think in the first half, we had the energy to control the game, but we had to deal with the counter-attacks of TS Galaxy, who are not only physical, but they were aggressive on the counter-attack.”
He felt they were in charge of proceedings, only to have the wind taken out of their sails by the goal they conceded at such a crucial moment of the match.
“We controlled the match, but obviously it was an emotional blow because we went into halftime expecting to be winning. But with the result at 1-0, it was hard,” Cardoso said.
“In the second half, it was clear that the energy, we were on very low batteries despite the intentionality to try and do things.
“It was not easy to have good decisions because of the very high level of fatigue. We tried to change the players to give help to the team with changes, and strategically the positioning of the team on the pitch.”
It did not work out, as Galaxy gave Sundowns little room to breathe: “They had a lot of players defending aggressively and stronger, and we could not overcome that. In the end, we got the negative result.”
Defeats are part and parcel of the game, though, and Cardoso has been around the block long enough to know that the key is how the team react in such a situation.
“There’s only one thing for us to do now, and that is look forward, get up, rest and recover.
“We were not the best team in the world after our last match (the 4-1 smashing of Pirates), and we are not the worst now.
“We just understand that it is absolutely impossible to go on like this. It was our fourth match in 72 hours.
“It is important that we recover for the weekend. We must recover emotionally from this setback, and we will come back even stronger, for sure.”