Mamelodi Sundowns head Miguel Cardoso identified the FIFA Club World Cup as one of the reasons that led to them not performing well after they didn’t have a pre-season.
Sundowns played their eighth match this season in a space of a month beating Stellenbosch FC1-0 and despite a lot of discomfort from the Sundowns supporters, they have so far managed to collect 11 points out of a possible 15.
Sundowns had only two weeks to prepare for this season after their 2024/25 season was extended due to the Club World Cup, with Cardoso explaining that injuries are also not doing any justice as some key players are still recovering.
“Preparation, that is the absolute key question to be done. And no one in South Africa has ever experienced what we are experiencing ourselves in the moment. And yet, that’s why I speak about how strong we are inside the club, because we know what we’re going to leave. We knew the moment we would have to face,” he told the media.
“And obviously, playing a semi-final of MTN8 against [Orlando] Pirates takes us to the limit, even before. Because if the draw had been our friend, and we could have, with all the respect, taken Sekhukhune [United], or probably we could, or Stellies, it would have been eventually a more. We played times Pirates away; we played [Kaizer] Chiefs away.
“That was a match that we had to change as a feature for the away match because we had no stadium available for the match, and then we still have to play Stellenbosch away. So, our season, for the moment, it’s what it is.
“In the middle of the whole match, we played Magesi and Richards Bay, so we knew the moment we would have to face them. And that’s why I’m always speaking about how we are strong enough, and we don’t need the people from outside who just try to destabilize us.
“When people don’t understand that the influence from the outside on a team and try to induce emotional status or create noise around it, it just makes us stronger, because we become stronger. That’s the nature of Mamelodi Sundowns to live through and out of the difficult moments, become stronger.
“And the team is showing that and going along with your question. Exactly, victories like today are stated on strong values, on strength, on the power of the group, on the cohesion of the group, and on the peace that we live in a daily basis, and day by day, will become stronger because we’re going to have capacity to go back on the physical levels, start to be able to run more and mostly to arrive on the end of the matches with a little bit less fatigue on the Brain, so that we continue to produce the game we want to play.
“But we need to respect the work of the players and the work of the players respecting it and the work of everybody is exactly understanding what is happening with this team. Because if you go to Europe and you take a look, and I have friends in many teams in Europe that also play the Club World Cup, and or they changed a lot, the players, or the ones that didn’t change, they are struggling. I remember how PSG started the season. Of course, when you have extra quality players, you can still win, and you have this, when you have the strongest spirit, you can still win. But it’s the fluidity of what you produce that exactly is not the same.
“But we also understand that we coaches, we players, we all together, we understand that, and we need to understand that in the moment the fatigue kicks us, we have to rely on the bravery, on the capacity to fight, on the capacity to manage the games, and even myself. Probably sometimes I would like to make some substitutions, but I have another ones to help the players to sustain it’s like a cyclist that wants to go up to the mountain when he’s in total shape, he goes up and he doesn’t.
“It’s a matter of managing it. But when it kicks you halfway, you can lose seven, eight minutes on a stage just because the hammer kicked your head. And it’s sometimes 15 minutes, 20 minutes to finish the game. It’s kicking us because we are still a little bit and look how we are working now. We have a break, but some players, five players will go to the under-20s. Five players will go for the A-national team.
“So, we will try at the same time that we still need to give rest, we’ll make cycles of work that we can bring the boys a little bit up and balance the group [Khuliso] Mudau will rejoin the group. [Thapelo] Morena, today was able to play the last match already. He helped, so we are bringing numbers.
“Let’s hope Grant can recover quickly. Let’s hope Mothobi [Mvala] can continue the work that is already underway with the team. Let’s hope [Thapelo] Maseko can join quickly. Let’s hope [Siyabonga] Mabena doesn’t have anything special, and he can go for the national team. And let’s hope that meanwhile, with the marketing arriving on its end by the first weeks of September, we can also stabilize the group, bring players in Tsiki just arrived, still some time for him to prepare, also to help the team, and that will help us all to become stronger.
“Because as much as people think that the coaches are magician, the coaches depend on the players availability and quality. And as I was saying, as much as people think we coaches are magicians, we just gather souls and quality, hearts, souls, and quality, because who expresses them are the players.
“”So, having availability and having high quality is the base of things, and that’s why I speak about rebuilding, because that’s what we are doing.
“It seems that this team is the same as last year, but it’s not. It looks like, but it’s not. But we are going there.”
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