Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has come out to defend his club following the Betway Premiership match against Orlando Pirates played at a poor Loftus Versfeld Stadium pitch on Saturday..
Sundowns beat Orlando Pirates 4-1 during an entertaining Betway Premiership match in Tshwane on Saturday.
However, the beautiful spectacle in front of a sold-out crowd was almost spoiled by the poor Loftus Versfeld Stadium surface, with especially Bucs players slipping all over the place in the early stages.
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The Brazilians scored their goals through Grant Kekana, Teboho Mokoena, and Man of the Match Lucas Ribeiro Costa (brace), whilst the visitors' consolation strike came from Deon Hotto.
Cardoso said both teams deserved to play on a better soccer field.
"Immediately when I entered the pitch for the pre-match press conference, I felt the pitch was not in a good condition," said Cardoso in the post-match press conference.
"For me, the better quality of the pitch is [the] better football you get out of it. For our team, for sure we suffer from pitches like this. I am not naive to say when we play away we have bad pitches.
"It's not bad pitches everywhere, but yes, in some places. But mostly, I spoke about the pitch in Polokwane where we played, that pitch is very tough", he added.
However, the Portuguese mentor went on to defend his side for the poor surface and said they tried their best to improve it.
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"I can confess [that] during the week, every day I received a report on what was done on the pitch. Our team of people, our green keepers, were there every day working on the field, otherwise it would have been worse. But there are things we don't control.
"We don't control the events that happen here, we don't control. The stadium is not ours and so it's not our responsibility for the pitch to be like that," said Cardoso.