Parker to Cardoso: ‘Real Madrid don’t complain about fatigue’

South Africa’s TS Galaxy caretaker coach Bernard Parker has responded to his Mamelodi Sundowns counterpart Miguel Cardoso’s claim that his side lost 3-2 to the Rockets on Tuesday, 12 May 2026, due to fatigue.

The Kaizer Chiefs legend was speaking on Metro FM’s Sports Night Amplified with Andile Ncube on Wednesday, 13 May 2026, in a live interview to reflect on the Betway Premiership match.

Asked for his opinion on the explanation by Cardoso that Sundowns lost due to fatigue, the Rockets’ caretaker mentor dismissed such a line of thinking.

“No way. No way. This is what football is all about,” Parker said. “You don’t hear Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Man City talk such because they, week-in and week-out, play at a higher intensity in terms of Champions League football, local cups, and leagues.”

46′ Goal TS Galaxy

TS Galaxy 3-2 Sundowns

Sundowns Has conceded 6 goals in Two Games pic.twitter.com/Z57N4SMRe8

— Suller_SA (@suller_sa_) May 12, 2026

Parker explains how TS Galaxy copes

The former Bafana Bafana star suggested that the best way to cope with fixture pileup was through the deployment of different playing styles and squad rotation.

“It is just about how you can refresh your squad and how you can get the result. Sometimes you can also not play the same way that you want to play the whole year through.

“Sometimes, you must plan as well. In our case, we had to plan. We had four games in 10 days. We also had a back-to -back schedule with the small squad that we have, but we managed to bring in some DDC [DStv Diski Challenge] players. They did well. They started against Sundowns. They completely contained them and helped us win the match.”

Parker has his take on fixtures

Sounding measured in the choice of his words, the former Chiefs suggested that Cardoso could have offered a different analysis if Masandawana had defeated TS Galaxy.

“If, with all respect to Mr Cardoso, he was on the winning side, he could have been saying something different. But this is football. I just want to wish them all the best for the [CAF Champions League] final,” he said.

For Cardoso, the defeat in Nelspruit was a symptom of a much larger problem.“I knew that the energy would not be high, but we had to be on top.

“But of course, we made mistakes that we cannot afford. In these last matches, due to fatigue, we certainly exposed ourselves and conceded goals that we never used to concede. It’s quite unfortunate,” the Portuguese said.

The Brazilians concluded their 2025/26 Betway Premiership campaign, ending on 68 points on Tuesday, three points ahead of second-place Orlando Pirates, who have two games in hand.