Mamelodi Sundowns have been knocked out of the Carling Knockout following a Round of 16 titanic tussle against Marumo Gallants on Saturday night. After 120 minutes of end-to-end football, there were no goals witnessed at the Lucas Moripe Stadium, but it was a 6-7 loss in an intense penalty shootout that led to Downs bowing out of the competition.
The hosts looked confident on the ball in the opening minutes of the first stanza, and while the game was subdued, they were creating the most chances but were struggling to carve a clear-cut one.
Gallants had their first real chance just outside the 20th minute when a cross was made into the area, but the ball was poor and didn’t meet the target.
The visitors were containing their hosts and were frustrating them. The opening half had seen a few chances for both sides, and Masandawana were struggling with no threat to the goalkeeper. The hosts tried to lure their opponents out of the danger area, but the Gallants were just not having it. The two sides ended up heading to the break with a goalless draw.
Tashreeq Matthews kicked off the second half proceedings with a dangerous chance. His shot, which came from Marcelo Allende, took a deflection before it fell into Khuliso Mudau’s feet. Mudau’s shot, however, hit the side netting.
Gallants found themselves with some space to create a scoring opportunity, but luckily Ronwen Williams read the danger quickly and went off his line to clear the danger for his side.
In the last ten minutes of regulation time, the hosts had two big chances. The first one came from substitute Teboho Mokoena, when he headed the ball towards the direction of the net. The ball, however, bounced too high and tipped the crossbar. Miguel Reisinho – who made his debut in Brazilian colours on the 79th minute – also almost found the back of the net with a headed effort, but the keeper smacked it away.
In the 86th minute, having only played seven minutes, Reisinho was sent off after a dangerous tackle on a Gallants player.
Masandawana almost scored a last-gasp goal, but the wall of white shirts blocked the chances. The game was forced into extra time after they played to a goalless draw in the 90 minutes. The tempo dropped for both sides, and the legs were getting heavy. The first ten minutes of extra time had no clear-cut chances from either side.
Peter Shalulile almost capitalised on an error made by the Bloemfontein-based side, but the goalkeeper went off his line to steal the ball off Shalulile’s feet. With no goals witnessed in extra time, the match was forced into a penalty shootout to determine the match winner. After a hard-fought penalty shootout, Bafana Ba Style just couldn’t get it right and now bow out of the cup competition.
How we lined up: Williams ©, Mudau, Cupido, Khoza, Modiba, Aubaas, Allende. Santos, Sales, Rayners, Matthews.
Subs: Onyango, Lebusa, Basadien, Morena, T. Mokoena, Mkhulise, Reisinho, B. Mokoena, Shalulile.
We can’t score goals or create many goal scoring opportunities because we spend the large part of the game playing in our own half with no urgency and intensity.Williams is the chief culprit to that and the coach made him to feel indispensable while he is not he must also bench him like he did to Mokoena.He is even useless when it comes to penalties,yesterday day i even heard an advert on Radio 2000,they were asking some analyst who would he prefer to take a penalty against between Chaine and Williams and the guy said Williams because it is easy to score against him,he said “you just kick it in the middle and Williams will dive to the side”. Now the real issue is some people think we just like to attack the coach and management for nothing.I’m going to say it again we have a stupid management,is like they are watching the same movie many time and expect a different end results.My points are in question form,when is the last time Sundowns won two games in a row? can you win any cup when you fail to win two games in a row except for Macufe? I don’t think we have won 3 games in a row this season,members can correct me if i’m wrong on that.Is this the technical team which they think can lead us to greater heights? I think our management if the can answer these questions honestly the will concur with me that they are stupid.I you can check on that game it was Rayners alone upfront with only Mathews and Santos trying to push the ball forward by collecting them in our own half,others were just dancing with the ball at the back.Sales is always playing deep and Allende runs 90 minutes non stop but at the end of the game you can’t finger out the good thing he did.We have been turned into ordinary team,every team relishes the idea of facing us when previously team were trembling when going to face us,we have been turned into Kaizer Chiefs.
We don’t have coach, we just play without any structure and creativity cardoso is clueless, management Please wakeup before he destroy our beloved team
We need to accept that we are now ordinary. We lost the shoe shine of pass, dribbling, and penetration. As a result, we are allowing our dribbling wizard to leave the team without promotion.
It is said penalties r a lottery bt at Sundowns its obvious they’ll lose that contest.I mean obviously Sundowns wll miss the 1st 2 penalties.What kind of a team now is our Sundowns they completed the whole 120 minutes with not a save from Arubi yet we expect 2 win games hay hay I rest my case.When is Sundowns terminating Cardoso’s contract bcoz this pain and agony is getting 2 me now.