Mamelodi Sundowns moved back to the top of the Betway Premiership with a 4-1 win over Durban City, but coach Miguel Cardoso described the evening as “another dark night for South Africa” as he criticised the officiating.
Sundowns produced an impressive display to replace Orlando Pirates at the league’s summit, with Thabang Matuludi scoring twice and Iqraam Rayners and Antonio Van Wyk also finding the net.
However, Cardoso’s post-match interview with SuperSport TV focused largely on decisions he felt had gone against the Betway Premiership leaders. The Portuguese coach suggested Sundowns had not been shown the respect they deserved.
“Today, is a day of a lot of emotions. I will make my best efforts to shut up and not speak too much. I think it’s another dark night for South Africa, but let people think whatever, there’s people that will sleep in a bed for sure,” Cardoso told SuperSport TV.
He added: “Honest people that work hard, even here today you should go look at the penalties that was taken from Sundowns. I don’t want to speak too much, but whoever has conscious today should before go to sleep pray a little bit and think a little bit more together.”
Despite his frustration with the match officials, Cardoso acknowledged that his side had been good enough to overcome Eric Tinkler’s Durban City, with Matuludi delivering an outstanding performance at full-back.
“Look, my team deserves everything but the same respect for Durban City today, our boys put the intensity, we profit obvious from freshness as we have a chance to change a lot of players from the previous match,” he said.
Cardoso also congratulated both teams and praised the conditions at the stadium following a result that lifted Sundowns one point clear of Orlando Pirates.
“Congratulations for both teams, obviously a big result for us, it’s obvious important to have a happy game with goals, congratulations for the fans, for this stadium, the management of this stadium, to have such quality of this pitch.”
The result sets up another closely contested title race, with Sundowns holding a narrow advantage over Pirates.
Cardoso believes the competition could develop in a similar way to last season, when the title battle was also tightly fought.
“Look, if the league is played like we saw today, there won’t be a lot of story, we’ll have a league like last year,” Cardoso said.
