Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso says he wouldn’t use the word obsession to describe his side’s desire to win the CAF Champions League.
Sundowns who are seasoned campaigners in Africa’s premium club competition have only won it once which was 10 years ago. Last season, they reached the final only to lose to the newly crowned African Club of the Year Pyramids FC.
They have been pitted in Group C alongside Al-Hilal, MC Alger and St Eloi Lupopo who they play in Pretoria on Saturday.
Asked how he manages the desire without obsessing, Cardoso said obsession is a strong word and that his charges will continue to put energy behind pursuing African glory and that starts with winning the group.
“I think we need to have a clear focus on winning competitions and it’s not only on winning the Champions league,” said Cardoso.
“But I know that throughout the competition everybody will take the pressure off their team saying we are the ones that should win, and they are the ones that are just participating. It’s starting very quickly that kind of speech. But for sure what we will do is be loyal to ourselves and being loyal to ourselves is obviously knowing, that we have a desire we have an intention.
“I don’t think obsession is the right one because obsession for me is already a medical state. But the pursuit of an objective needs all the energy you can put on and that obviously is what we are going to put. The Champions League is a trophy that the club seeks for 10 years unfortunately last year we were not able to give this pleasure to South Africa in general but mostly to our fans and to our club.
“As you can imagine for me it’s even worse because for two years I have been there and I could not win. But that will take nothing from us we’ll give energy to seek our objective, understanding that in the end by details because it’s always by details that we win.
“We hope we can be in that deciding moment and that we can be more stronger. There’s a lot but we should think about winning the group stage. And to win the group stage we need to win the next match and the next match is the most important of our lives. That’s how we are going to face this.”
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