Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso - Sundowns Media.
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has admitted to facing tough competition in their quest to retain the Premier Soccer League (PSL) title.
The Brazilians opened a six point gap ahead of second-placed and rivals Orlando Pirates following their 2-0 win against Richards Bay at the King Zwelithini Stadium on Saturday.
Arthur Sales opened the scoring for the Brazilians before Lucas Ribeiro found the back of the net to give his side a 2-0 advantage. Asked about the title race, the Portuguese tactician revealed that he anticipates a close competition until the end of the season.
“Tough competition very exciting in terms of management from my part, competition is there,” said Cardoso as quoted by idiskitimes. “We have to focus on us in the right moments because certainly the deciding moments will arrive and on those moments, we have to give a positive answer. For sure we’ll be ready for it.”
On the level of the South African league, Cardoso said: “The league is obviously a tough league played by athletic players in general. So, the physical demand of the matches is very high. We have data that if I compare to previous places where I was the volume of high intensity distances that the players do in the game is incredible.
“That’s the major difference. But it’s important to have capacity to give an answer to that because those actions are the ones that make a difference in a game especially if you can sustain them in the parts of the game where the other team is more tired. And to cope with the style of play like we saw today like we saw in the last two that we played.”
Cardoso, who has won four straight league matches since taking charge of Sundowns continued: “It’s the same style so we have a lot of runs back so it’s quite difficult to have the team like I usually say, travelling together on the pitch, so that we go up together we come down together because sometimes we are going up and the ball is already coming here.
“So, we have to come back, and this separates the team a little bit, I don’t like to see this. I like the team to be connected and to be organised. So sometimes we need to organise ourselves at the back then we can go together in the front.”
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