Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso says it's going to be a "long championship" following their 1-0 defeat to TS Galaxy.
Sundowns saw their 10-game winning run in the Betway Premiership come to an end after the defeat at Mbombela Stadium.
Read: Downs Suffer First League Loss Under Cardoso
The former Esperance coach felt his side did not have the energy after their recent heavy schedule.
"Sorry, I didn't see (Galaxy dominant), we were dominant all game, TS Galaxy defended all game, obviously we didn't have the energy that we needed, it's our fourth match in 72 hours," Cardoso told SuperSport after the game.
"And we were penalised because of that. We had better chances, we should have scored but we were penalised with the goal in the last minutes of the first half and we had no energy for the second one."
When asked about his changes in the second period, he added, "You need to ask their coach but its normal that the team that is defending wants to keep the threat in the front so that we don't go full energy in attack.
"I think we coped with their offence, we knew we had to risk, we took chances, we put pressure, we thought it could help, we changed the strategy in terms of system but they defended very well. We have to congratulate them also for the effort they did defensively.
"The lesson is continue to look forward and continue to work, I've always said it will be a long championship, not once have you heard me say something different than that," the Portuguese coach said.
"So my position today is exactly the same, we will rise from today and for sure we will come (back) even stronger," Cardoso added.
