Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso claimed Kaizer Chiefs’ late winner in Sunday’s Nedbank Cup semifinal was clearly offside and called for VAR to be introduced in domestic football.
“It’s obvious the goal is offside. If you don’t think so, go back and look at it because it's clear, clear, clear, clear. So when we work in a country that doesn't have a VAR, that's what happens,” he said after Ashley du Preez steered home an 89th minute winner to secure a place in the final for Chiefs.
Late drama at Loftus 🤯
— SuperSport Football ⚽️ (@SSFootball) April 13, 2025
Ashley du Preez is the hero 🤩🔥#SSDiski | #NedbankCup pic.twitter.com/wqCLcoE2xV
Chiefs came from behind to win 2-1 at Loftus Versfeld and book a derby final against Orlando Pirates in Durban on 10 May.
“There's a team that gets knocked out of this competition because of a mistake from the referee. I think we are being penalised enough all through the season regarding refereeing mistakes.
“And today we are out of the competition, four minutes from the end from a goal that is offside,” he said, adding sponsors should help pay for the cost of VAR at the latter stages of a competition like the Nedbank Cup.
Sundowns had been ahead at halftime through Tebeho Mokoena’s freekick but a defensive error from Lucas Saurez allowed Wandile Duba to equalise in the 57th minute.
“We cannot run away from it. There was a mistake. An individual mistake that lead to to a 1-1 scoreline,” added Cardoso, who said the error allowed Chiefs back into the contest.
“Anyway, football is like that, mistakes are capitalised on. I always says that the games are sometimes decided on details. Today, the detail for the opponent came from that mistake.
“But we don't kill no one,” he said of Suarez, who has made similar errors in recent games.
“We rise together and we give the hand to the player and we play to solve the problem. That's what the team did. Obviously that is not easy to concede a goal like that, but we kept the intention to come back and score a second goal. We kept ourselves in the game.”
Cardoso also said Sundowns were hampered by a poor mental approach in a niggly contest.
“I was not happy because I think we could have played better. Less emotional and more mental, thinking better about what to do in each moment of the game, coping with the intensity. We let ourselves go little bit under the emotions of the game,” he added.