Mamelodi Sundowns cup hero Teboho Mokoena played through pain to help his side win the MTN8 on Saturday with his knee injury not healed, coach Miguel Cardoso has revealed.
Mokoena had been a doubt in the build-up to Saturday’s final at the Moses Mabhida Stadium after suffering a knee collateral ligament tear when on national team duty and was a surprise inclusion in the line-up against holders Orlando Pirates at the Moses Mabhida.
Mokoena, who has previously netted several key goals for the club, scored after 11 minutes to give Sundowns the lead as they went onto win the game 2-0 and take the trophy away from the Buccaneers.
Cardoso credited both his own medical team and that of Bafana Bafana in ensuring Mokoena was ready to play on Saturday.
“The work on all the players that got injured with the national team started exactly in the national team because they were submitted to treatment immediately,” Cardoso explained.
“They were treated in Egypt at the highest level by the doctors of the national team. As soon as the players arrived, and obviously, I want to congratulate the work of our medical department, first with the communication they established with the national team, and by the commitment they had on immediately trying to evaluate the players.
“But I have to highlight, obviously, the character of the players who always said they would like to play, and they would give they gave their best to the treatments and the procedures that we had to apply.”
This Cardoso said also applied to Aubrey Modiba, who was also a doubt after sustaining injury on national team duty.
Mokoena, the coach added, was “not pain free”.
“He had not trained recently, and I think it was clear, the started slowly for him and it was quite difficult to pick up the pace. But he is a high-profile player, and gave his best, and I think he finished the game very, very, very tired, but giving the best to the team,” the coach added.