Africa-Press – South-Africa. In a ploy to take pressure off his players, Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has taken responsibility for some of the glaring and costly mistakes by senior players in the past few matches.
The most recent mistake was during the Nedbank Cup semifinal loss to Kaizer Chiefs at Loftus where experienced defender Lucas Suarez laid the ball in the path of Wandile Duba to equalise.
Chiefs went on to score a late winner and book a place in the final with Orlando Pirates. Cardoso and Sundowns cannot afford similar mistakes when they host Al Ahly at Loftus on Saturday.
The Brazilians take on the Egyptian Red Devils in the first leg of the Champions League semifinal clash looking to earn a positive result at home before they travel to Cairo for the return leg next week.
“The one that makes more mistakes is me,” he said as they prepared for the clash. “Before a player makes a mistake, I would have made more mistakes — and the first mistake I make is to choose players for the task.
“I have to choose 11 players from more than 20 and there are those who always think I have already made mistakes [by picking those who are going to play].
“Mistakes are part of the game, there are some goals that come from something fantastic, but most of them come from small mistakes.
“Having said that, I don’t stay too attached to the past regarding mistakes.”
When they lost 2-1 to Pirates in the league last month at FNB Stadium, there were individual mistakes and Cardoso says they are constantly looking to improve.
“We want to become better. We trust the players we have that they can cope with difficulties that every match brings. There is always an emotional state you need to bring out of the players so that they can perform in a proper way.
“Whatever happened in the last match, there was still time to be played in the match — but we could not solve the question. It is not because of that mistake [that we lost the game], there were other mistakes.
“I don’t want to speak about the last game because we must look to the future. I am the type of coach who when the game is finished, I always go back to check what I could have done better.
“It can only get better if I work with what I can control. Despite that, in the moment of the game I need to address whatever I can. After the game, my job is to go back and analyse what I could have done to avoid certain situations.
“We need to support people and not to ‘kill’ anyone. There is a saying in football that even if I don’t like the players, I should love them all.”
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