Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has explained why not winning the CAF Champions League should not be seen as a failure.
Sundowns' sole Champions League title came in 2016, and they were eliminated in the semi-finals last season by Esperance Sportive de Tunis – Cardoso's former club – under the then head coach Rulani Mokwena, before Cardoso took the helm.
In the 2022/23 campaign, they were also knocked out in the same stage at the hands of Moroccan giants Wydad Casablanca.
As Cardoso prepares Masandawana to take on the Tunisian champions, with whom he started this season with, he called for more understanding around the competition the club has struggled to win for over a decade now.
‘I DON’T FEEL IT’S A FAILURE’
“It’s important that people understand, the Champions League or a competition that involves the best club of a continent, in this case CAF, if it would be in Europe, UEFA, brings the best players and teams to compete together,” Cardoso said as quoted by iDiski Times.
“Obviously in the end there’s two teams who play in the final and only one winner – I don’t feel that teams that don’t win the Champions League, are teams that fail. Last season we didn’t win the Champions League when I was coaching Esperance, but I didn’t feel at all that I failed, or the team failed.
“What I mean is that we know we want to bring something more for this club, we really want to bring something more for this club and we know that everything has been done to have the conditions to succeed in this competition and go as far as possible.
“That’s the spirt we have, the mindset we have, we will fight until the minute 90 or whatever, extra-time in the first and second match and then we will fight, again, again and again with all our energy.
“But it’s important we look at sports in the way that it should be looked, not all the teams that are unsuccessful in the qualifying rounds are bad, a good team will get knocked out, Esperance is a good team with experience in the Champions, as is Sundowns a very good team with players who want to succeed.
“I feel every day, these players have a lot of will to do well in the Champions League because the want to leave mark, we have a group of players who are not young, not old but not young and have experience and will to leave a mark.
“It’s clear that mindset from everyone at the club and we’ll try to be loyal at the wish, to ourselves with the quality we have, so we fight as strong as possible to go far away as possible in the competition.”
