Cape Town City coach Benni McCarthy admits that his side tried to play ‘fancy’ because they were playing against Mamelodi Sundowns. 

The Citizens were eliminated from the Nedbank Cup after suffering a 2-1 defeat to Sundowns in the quarter-final of the competition at Cape Town Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

McCarthy admits that his side wanted to play expansive football against a side of Sundowns quality rather than playing ‘simple’ football.

‘This football is a funny old game. When you play such an opponent, you dominate and create chances and you’re supposed to put the game to bed… these footballers never learn,’ McCarthy told SuperSport TV after the match.

‘Good teams, you don’t let up the ropes when you have them. Unfortunately, we paid the price, they’re a very good team. When they have the chances, they will put them to bed. They scored more than us. So now we forget about the Cup and focus on the league. It’s a pity because we played well.

‘Congratulations to them. Next season we will come back stronger and hopefully, we’ll learn from this.

‘We made individual errors and the players were trying to be fancy because we’re playing Sundowns and the whole of South Africa is watching this game. I think we should have been as simple as possible.

‘The first goal came from an error from [Taariq] Fielies where he tried to make a trick and played a middle pass and we lost it, boom we’re 1-0 down and our finishing also let us down.’