MIGUEL CARDOSO LATE INCLUSION OF ON FORM THREE SUNDOWNS STRIKERS WOULD HAVE BEEN QUESTIONED IF MATSATSANTSA LOST TO THE RED DEVILS IN CAIRO.
In his defence Cardoso gives an explanation in total justification of a decision relavant in tactics against the Red Devils in a 75 000 sold out CAF Champions League,TotalErnegies second leg encounter in Egypt.
“This is obviously a very interesting question and it could be the other way, if things don’t work because as I told you when we speak in press conferences in South Africa sometimes coaches are judged by the result and not the strategy or by how we approach the game because sometimes a detail can change a lot of what happens inside the pitch,” Cardoso said.
“Today on our side it could have been another way but what we wanted to create was obviously mobility in the front, we wanted to have a lot of mobility to deal with spaces. We knew there would be a moment where the team Al Ahly would have to expose a little bit more, a team like Al Ahly with 0-0 cannot play a game to draw they need some moment to try to go for goals because they know with a goal from us they are out.
“So, we knew that would happen so bringing in the pitch speed and aggression on the back and not references for those center backs that are so strong on the contact because all the center backs at Al Ahly they are so strong on the contact but playing on the spaces we would for sure have a better result.
Ahly struggled to cope with Cardoso’s approach for most of the second half, and the Portuguese mentor adds that the introduction of Sales opened up the game even more in the dying minutes.
“Introduced Attia [Marwan] to create with Taher [Mohamed] and Attia in the back of Peter and Iqraam to play aggressive in the front. We knew that we were gonna have a lot of chances but I think in the first half we had two wonderful chances that could have [been] scored,” the coach explained.
“We had them from Lucas [Ribeiro] with also two in the second half and a moment we could do it, I’m really happy that the boys had this moment of such happiness for the club, for the boys, for myself of course, wonderful.”
