Mamelodi Sundowns News Today: Toughest Cardoso game at Downs, why contract was extended, & more

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Mamelodi Sundowns News Today: Toughest Cardoso game at Downs, why contract was extended, & more

Latest Mamelodi Sundowns news in the last 24 hours, including coach Miguel Cardoso opening up on toughest game at Masandawana, why he opted to stay, and more.

Sundowns latest news

Cardoso on toughest match at Downs

Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has revealed the first leg of the 2025 CAF Champions League final against Pyramids FC as the toughest match in his tenure as Masandawana mentor.

In his first season as Sundowns coach, Cardoso led the Brazilians to the final of Africa’s premium inter-club competition, at the time his second final in a row in the competition.

However, Bafana Ba Style could not take advantage in front of their home fans as they conceded late to draw the match 1-1 in a tightly contested affair. The Egyptians turned things around at home winning the second leg 2-1 and lifted he trophy for the very first time with a 3-2 aggregate score-line.

Cardoso said he understands his players wanted to secure the result by defending too low. He added that what made the game painful wasn’t just their late equaliser but how Walid El Karti’s goal changed the dynamic of the tie.

“The home match with Pyramids 100%, because as much as I see that game, and I think the goal from Pyramids is a sequence of mistakes, I think that it was painful because that goal changed a lot the dynamic of a final,” said Cardoso on Mamelodi Sundowns TV.

“And I understood also that it would be very difficult to eventually overcome it. We could, but it would be difficult to overcome that emotional moment when you suffer the goal in the last minutes. You know I’m the kind of coach that thinks that defending matches is not putting defenders; is putting people in the front, is threatening the opponent.

“But I also think that protecting results is having the ball, and that’s something that nowadays we are doing better. I think we are doing better, but still, we are always on that. Even this match, I think we could have stayed more times with the ball up until the end. So, we go back on that, and that Pyramids match, I felt that the players wanted to defend low, wanted to protect the result.

Lucas Ribeiro and Blati Toure Mamelodi Sundowns vs Pyramids
Image – Caf Media

“As I said, I always try to give the right answers to the questions the game puts. But I also like to take the game to the side where I also sometimes can say sorry, but I don’t want to give those answers, I just want to give these ones because this is us. This is what we can control, and we are better on that.

“You know throughout the season, how many matches you have where your defence is really stimulated on the behaviours defensively, like let’s organize and defend in a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1. We don’t have those we just have transitions. So, when you arrive in a Champions League match and you go for the highest level, and then you are challenged, okay, now we don’t have the ball, whoops! This is a different reality.

“If we don’t have the ball, we defend like this, if we defend like that, because compactness and defending well also allows you to make good transitions. Defending well makes you attack better. Attacking better makes you defend better. And the game is a whole. There’s no attack, defence, the phases of the game they are completely engaged ones on the others.”

Sundowns score 8!

Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies put in another merciless performance in the Hollywoodbets Super League by thrashing Richmond United 8-0 at the festival held at the Westbourne Oval in Gqeberha this past weekend.

Why Cardoso committed future to Sundowns

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has explained what motivated him to commit his future to the Brazilians.

Since arriving at Chloorkop in December 2024, there have been some instances when Sundowns fans expressed frustration with Cardoso, while calling for his sacking. But the club stuck with the coach, and Masandawana chairman Tlhopie Motsepe recently said that being the Champions League losing finalists in the 2024/25 season made them see potential in Cardoso to continue with him.

“I’m absolutely excited to be at the club. I have no idea whatsoever more than my head wants to really go along with the club as far as we came together,” Cardoso told the club’s media team.

“I have a long-term contract, I’m very happy, I feel so pleased, I feel respected. You know, for a coach, the most important thing is working with people who really want you. 

“That’s what I told my agent to renew our contract now in summer. That was a possibility of one year we extended. The reason will always be as long as you want me and give me love, I’ll be with you.

“I’ve been in environments that have been very aggressive for coaches, where no one was respected. And I feel I have been respected as a man. I feel I share the values of the family and I’m very thankful for that.”

“My family also feels respected. There is a clear understanding and common ground on settling the way we are. That obviously makes me comfortable, despite, as you may imagine, that I’m 8000 km away from home,” continued the former Cela Vigo coach. 

“My father and my mama are no longer young people. I sometimes have my doubts regarding if I’m doing the right things because it’s not a matter of my salary now in my life. It has nothing to do with that, it’s just the love for the game.

Miguel Cardoso savours the African Asian Pacific Cup glory.
Miguel Cardoso savours the African Asian Pacific Cup glory. Image: Mamelodi Sundowns

“Mostly it’s the level of the game because I could be working in Portugal at a club next to my house. It’s really the love and the different experience. I always say that I love the difference, and I don’t want to live the same life for many years. 

“I want to be challenged, and here I feel a lot of challenges, and I also feel that coaching Sunsowns allows me to experience a lot of context because we travel a lot, we play in different competitions, and we go everywhere in the world.

“So, if I were working in Portugal, I would probably be in the same restaurants, same people, same house, same streets and here I’m a man of the world, and I love being the man of the world.”

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Willis Sob

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Willis Sob is a sports betting expert and journalist covering Nigeria and South Africa, with 16 years of experience. With a background in journalism, reporting and programme production, he specialises in football odds, and his work has appeared on OK Africa and GOAL, as well as TV, radio and podcasts.

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