It was an uneventful Sunday evening for Mamelodi Sundowns at the Stade 26 du Mars when they recorded a 2-0 defeat against Malian outfit, Stade Malien in the second leg of the CAF Champions League. It is, however, the 2-3 aggregate in favour of Downs that saw them advancing to the semifinals.
The visitors were not even given time to settle at Stade 26 du Mars after the hosts made an early impact through a goal a minute into the encounter. Masandawana were caught cold on the left side as the Malian outfit bolstered the ball into the net through a headed effort.
The visitors had the ball possession but their Stade Malien counterparts were sweeping up at the back to deny them a scoring chance. When Masandawana eventually had their first opportunity at goal, it came from Nuno Santo with a half volley but the goalkeeper smacked it away.
No attacking visitation was coming from the Pretoria-based side as they looked a bit slower than usual. The number of stoppages during the opening half
Bafana Ba Style were making a lot of mistakes and the hosts pounced on them to take advantage of that. On the 40th minute, from an interception, Stade Malien took to the box. A cross was made in there but the connection was sloppy as the effort at goal hit the inner crossbar. They found the rebound and struck it to the far post to double their lead.
After the hosts scored the second goal, Masandawana started looking alive and with a sense of urgency. They were, however, out of time as they went to the interval trailing by two goals.
Bafana Ba Style looked livelier and aggressive in the second stanza, especially on the attacking phase. They came so close to finding their first goal through Santos but due to the many bodies of defence in the final third, they couldn’t get it right.
The hosts had an opportunity to score after the hour mark but Khuliso Mudau made an important challenge to clear the danger away.
On the 77th minute, Aubrey Modiba was sent off after a bad mistimed challenge. This forced coach Miguel Cardoso to make a change, introducing Divine Lunga for Santos just to keep the defence tight in the final stages of the encounter.
The hosts dug deep to find a third goal to level matters in terms of aggregate but the Downs defence was really tight and ensured no ball bypasses them. Despite losing this second leg, Masandawana will be advancing to the semifinals of the Champions League.
How we lined up: Williams ©, Mudau, Kekana, Ndamane, Modiba, Mokoena, Allende, Adams, Santos, Sales, Rayners.
Subs: Onyango, Cupido, Lunga, Ntsbeleng, Mdunyelwa, Zwane, Mkhulise, Matthews, Leon.
I’m very much concern about our coach sometimes and I know he will not pleased everybody with his starting eleven.Our foreign players are so struggling with African conditions we heard the temperature was on 38-40 degrees Celsius he should have played Mkhulise and Ntsabaleng it’s very hurt to see Mkhulise being waisted like this and what hurt most is that he had just renewed his contract which means he will stuck on grandstand or reverse bench as long as Cardoso is our coach.
Another thing pls technically staff rebuke or try to talk to Leon to stop his behaviour of collecting unnecessary cards that boy is boring on that not his performance which is good,in almost every games he played collec the card even the statistics in Colombia suggested that his behaviour.
All in all when you want to win Champs League scores many goals as you can and stop showboating and slow build ups at the back because away games are very difficult.
Our technical team lacks tactical acumen,they knew before hand about the weather conditions they are going to be faced with yet they started with South Americans on the most demanding positions instead of introducing them at the later stages of the game when the heat has subsided.These are finer details that can make you win or loose a champions league game.I remember when we won the champions league we we lost away to Zesco under an extreme heat and on the second leg we played the at night because they were not used to playing under the lights,the same happened when we played final,we played Zamelak at a very hot Attridgevile and we easily won.So by now should have been able to know which players to play under different weather conditions.Coach always talk about managing players yet Santos plays more minutes in every game even when he has a bad game.Him and Sales had bad games against Marumo and Stade Malien respectively. Modiba alway puts the team under pressure with unnecessary red cards in the champions league,then there is always Williams and Kekana with their usual back passes,those boy are stupid,they are obsessed with aimless back football even when conditions don’t allow it,in champions league wise players and teams play for results not beautiful football.The introduction of Cupido helped to stabilize our defense because of his hunger and aggression and also Mathews and Leon brought balance to team we didn’t look like we were one man down.Mathews might miss chances but his hard work brings balance to the team both offensively and defensively and creates chances for others to score.
Domns your comments were good but I just spoil by call person stupid guys respect very important even the children if done wrong speak nicely educate him or her don’t call names that’s demoralizing person
You’re raising such valid points @ Muzi and Downs4Ever. Nuno Santos was so exhausted, he played the whole game against Marumo_Gallants, and starting with him in Bamako under those punishing conditions was just risky. I could see before the game that he was even struggling to breathe. I hope the team learned some valuable lessons in this tie against Stade Malien. We should’ve buried that team by more than 6 goals here @ home. Favouritism is still an issue in the team, I don’t think we’re necessarily doing well recently because of our technical team. Cardoso will remain a palooka to me, an imposter of a coach