Mngqithi: Sundowns was the better team on the day

Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi insists they only have themselves to blame after they missed out on the opportunity to qualify for the semi-finals of the Caf Champions League.

The Brazilians’ journey in the continental competition ended after they played out to a 1-1 draw with Petroléos de Luanda at the FNB Stadium in the return leg, suffering a 3-2 defeat on aggregate over the two-legged fixture.

Mngqithi expressed his disappointment at not qualifying for the semi-finals while also bemoaning his side’s missed opportunities throughout the match.

“First half, we created [I think] nine chances, and we had two big chances but unfortunately when we did not take those chances maybe they came back to bite us. But I do believe we had a very good first half, unfortunate not to score enough in that moment,” Mngqithi told his club’s official website.

“In the second half, we had a lot of things that were very unfortunate, the momentum of the game was killed by a whole lot of things; [first] the VAR decisions, I just feel that they took too long. I wouldn’t say they were right or wrong, but I just feel in a game it has an effect when you have too many stoppages and maybe four or five minutes in the issue of Denis and the handball, I think that’s a decision that can be taken very quickly.

“The second one was with the penalty, I think again it is something that took too long, [but] as to whether those decisions were right or wrong, to be honest at this stage I would not want to go there because to a certain extent I do believe most of the decisions were very good but, unfortunately, the momentum was broken down a lot. The second half became very ugly, let’s be honest, it was an ugly game of football.”

The Brazilians took the lead almost immediately after the restart when defender Brian Onyango found the back of the net, but the game was put beyond them when Tiago Azulão slotted home a penalty in the 64th minute to guide his side into the last four of the competition.

“We ended up forcing a lot of balls and the game became very uncontrollable, but nonetheless I am very proud of the boys. [We are] unfortunate that we did not qualify for the semi-finals, but I think the boys gave a good account of themselves, and it’s probably us as the leadership that will have to take the bullet and say maybe we need to plan and do better in the next coming matches and make sure that we improve in this space because seemingly we are not achieving our ultimate goals.

“We were playing a very good team, one must not take that away from them, but the number of chances that we created do suggest that we dominated the game. We could have easily scored two or three goals in the first fifteen minutes, we created very good chances, but unfortunately when you don’t take those early chances in the match and as the game progresses you start getting anxious. I would give them credit because they’ve gone through, but I wouldn’t really think that their organisation made it very difficult for us to penetrate and create clear-cut opportunities which I believe we created.

“I think we can take the blame on ourselves because we had chances and opportunities to capitalise on some of the challenges they had, based on the profile that we saw of them, but I don’t want to run away from the fact that we were playing against a very good team and they are not just pushovers. I still believe that our team was the better team on the day, but unfortunately, that does not count when you did not put balls into the net. In the Champions League, unlike in the PSL, you make one or two stupid mistakes you get punished, the goals we conceded that side [away] were all very bad goals,” Mngqithi concluded.