Sundowns News Today: Millions lost, Cardoso admits failure

Latest Mamelodi Sundowns news, including the millions they will miss after their shocking CAF Champions League elimination and coach Miguel Cardoso admits failure.

Cardoso admits total failure after CAL CL shock

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso admits their CAF Champions League exit is a total failure.

Sundowns were the biggest casualty of the weekend when they were kicked out of the Champions League following a 1-1 draw with Wiliete SC of Angola in their second leg clash.

The Angolan side won on the away goals rule, seeing Sundowns miss out on the group stages for the first time since 2015.

The defending champions had been in the last two finals, and a couple of semi-finals before that but this season, even a group stage appearance will not happen.

Nuno Santos of Mamelodi Sundowns. Image: Mamelodi Sundowns

“Of course, it’s a failure, it’s a failure from everybody, we should embrace it, from the players to the coaches obviously. But I want to state how it is a failure because I don’t want to give you an opportunity just to say that,” Cardoso told reporters at Loftus Versfeld Stadium as per KickOff.

“I think we controlled the match completely, we just did not score the goals we had to score. If you count the opportunities we had inside the box, both in the first-half, second-half, we had to make more, express the result.

“Obviously if you don’t finish the situations you have, you stay exposed to anything that could happen in the match,” he added.

Millions Sundowns will lose after CAF exit

Thabang Matuludi of Mamelodi Sundowns. Image: Mamelodi Sundowns

Meanwhile, Sundowns failure to qualify for the Champions League group stages will come at a heavy cost as they will miss out on a bumper reward.

The Brazilians suffered a shock exit at the preliminary round and after banking a cool $6 million (R99.4 million) for winning last season’s Champions League, they will now only take home a paltry $100,000 (R1.6 million) from the Confederation of African Football which is the reward for teams that exit the competition at the preliminary round.

Failure to qualify for the group stage will see the Brazilians miss out on at least $700,000 (R11.6 million) which Wiliete SC will now bank as Sundowns watch the competition from home.