Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has explained why new signing Deano Van Rooyen is yet to make his debut for the club since joining at the start of the season.
Van Rooyen joined the Brazilians in September afterparting ways with Orlando Pirates ahead of the new campaign.
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Following his arrival in Tshwane, Sundowns also strengthened their right-back department with the signing of Thabang Matuludi.
While Matuludi has already featured in several matches for the reigning champions, Van Rooyen is still waiting for his first appearance.
Cardoso has explained that the technical team does not want to rush the defender into action before he is fully ready to compete. Nevertheless, the coach is pleased with his progress, particularly based on his performances in the friendly matches.
“Regarding Deano, you spoke about Deano, he is a player that, when he came to us, he was with a big pause in terms of preparation,” said Cardoso.
“We understand always the moments of the players and we always look to create conditions so that when we expose them to the competition, we don’t give them an environment where he cannot excel or show good things. It’s our way of thinking about the players.
“We don’t expose players to a public environment because a football game is a public environment, an environment of performance, when we don’t feel the player is really ready for that.And he’s arriving on that stage.
“Obviously, as you may imagine, the competition on the position is quite high. There’s Zuko [Mdunyelwa], Thabang [Matuludi] arrived and he settled very quickly in the team.
“That obviously also, we didn’t know how the things were going to be when we brought one and the other. Of course, Thabang picked the pace more quickly. And just the moment, we never know the next moment how it will be.
“Today [Wednesday] he played in a friendly match. He was quite okay. So we are happy with him at the moment.”