Cardoso: Sundowns deserved the luck

THERE was method in Miguel Cardoso’s madness of starting Friday night’s CAF Champions League semi-final second leg clash without an out-and-out striker after all.

Mamelodi Sundowns’ Portuguese coach fielded a first XI bereft of a renowned centre-forward against an Al Ahly outfit renowned for their defensive prowess.

For a while it looked an ill-informed ploy, as Tashreeq Matthews huffed and puffed about as a false nine, missing opportunities that a Peter Shalulile or Iqraam Rayners would probably have converted.

And with Rayners responsible for forcing the late own goal by Yasser Ibrahim to send the South African champions into the final courtesy of the away-goals rule following the 1-1 aggregate draw, it seemed to confirm that Cardoso should have started with his natural strikers.

Not necessarily, though, as the bald-headed tactician explained just why he went with the tactics he did.

“It had to do with the characteristics of the players of Ahly. We knew that their centre-backs are very strong on the contact,” the Sundowns boss said.

“We knew we had to tire them. We knew that we had to work on the spaces, and we knew that mobility will help us – and that’s what we did.

“Look, it was a tough decision to let a player like Peter or Iqraam stay out of the (first) team, but football is not played by players.

“It is played by ideas, and when the players interpret the ideas of the coach, it becomes more simple.”

Cardoso says he took comfort in knowing that the players would make a positive impact when he brought them on.

“We knew we could use those players in the right moments in the game, and that’s what we did to bring more aggression. We wanted them to profit on the fatigue that we caused on the (Ahly) defence.”

He was honest to admit that the Brazilians also had the football gods smiling on them.

“In football, there’s a moment when you need luck, and we deserved it because we looked for the luck, and we scored. And after that, we had to protect the goal.”

Sundowns fought a great rearguard battle after forcing that own-goal equaliser to cancel out the first-half strike by Taher Mohamed.

Cardoso acknowledged just how tough they had it.

“As expected, a very difficult match played by the two best teams in Africa in terms of ranking,” he said.

“After the first one (the goalless draw at Loftus last week), we knew that a goal for us would allow us to put a lot of pressure on Ahly.

“Even after suffering the first one, we knew that we had to go for that goal. We worked together.

“The team believed and worked together trying to be more aggressive.

“We went looking for our luck also, (because) so sometimes you need to go for luck, not wait for it to happen. Obviously, the boys believed.”

Now Sundowns are in the final, for the third time in the club’s history, having lost to Al Ahly in 2001 and beaten Zamalek in 2016.

They are facing yet another Egyptian outfit – the upstarts Pyramids FC who stunned Orlando Pirates 3-2 - on May 24 at home and then in Cairo on June 1.

Will the Brazilians add a second star above their club’s crest?

Many will agree that Cardoso and his men will start as favourites. But African soccer is pretty fickle at the top.