Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has expressed his frustration at the limited time he has to prepare his team for matches.
Cardoso’s team completed a great week when they thrashed title rivals Orlando Pirates 4-1 in the PSL on Saturday following on their 4-0 and 3-0 victories over Golden Arrows and SuperSport United respectively.
However, with games coming thick and fast, Cardoso has had to fully utilise his squad but is not happy that he does not have enough time on the training ground to pass across his message to his players.
“We try to be balanced always. The approach on the team development is always balanced, it means when we attack, we should consider how the other team can harm us – and today it was clear, we had to be very clever in this moment, it’s a big must,” Cardoso said after the match as quoted by iDiski Times.
Cardoso has had 30 training sessions
“The moment we lose the ball, we knew it would be critical moments, we had to cope with that and because we did it so well, we could express ourselves by having the ball, committing spaces, managing width and depth.
“The way we see the team growing… as much as they understand the spaces, the best the team can express, that’s how individual quality should appear, they can play from spaces and we profit from that.
“We have been developing as a team on a daily basis with the hard work the players do. We don’t have a lot of time to train – we had 30 sessions [since my appointment] from those, many is recovery sessions for the regular players.”
Cardoso says he has had to be creative with his players to find the best possible way to maintain optimal performances within their tight schedule.
How did Sundowns prepare for Pirates?
“After the game, we work with the players who didn’t play, team building, that’s how we try to get all on the same level, but the investment of the players have made the development of this team, understanding the ideas, analysis, studying the tactics,” he added.
“This game with Pirates, was prepared in 20 minutes, we had 20 minutes on the pitch, no running, just positioning the players, where the ball moves from there to here and when we win the ball, the different moments that we do.
“Video analysis, then team meetings, that’s how we prepared, there’s no time to train, if we do train, they will not arrive in the game with good condition, so we didn’t even exercise in terms of physical questions, just positional sessions 10v10, building up. How we should press when we are high on the pitch, how to press from a low block.”
Cardoso will still have to persevere with the tough conditions as his team have another match on Tuesday against TS Galaxy before a Round of 16 Nedbank Cup tie against lower league side Mpheni Home Defenders FC on Sunday February 16.
