Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has outlined the club’s major trophy targets as the Brazilians prepare for a demanding season across multiple competitions.
Sundowns have already secured their first piece of silverware after defeating Al Ahli Saudi to win the FIFA African-Asian-Pacific Cup two weeks ago.
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Their next opportunity comes this Saturday when they face Orlando Pirates in the MTN8 final at Moses Mabhida Stadium, with another trophy up for grabs.
The Tshwane giants will then turn their attention to a packed schedule featuring international, continental and domestic competitions.
Cardoso has identified the CAF Super Cup as one of Sundowns’ key objectives, with the Portuguese eager to add another major continental trophy to the club’s collection in a short period.
The Betway Premiership is also high on their priority list after Sundowns surrendered the league title to Orlando Pirates last season.
Cardoso also wants his side to challenge for the FIFA Challenger Cup as they look to compete for honours on every front.
“We are the living proof that we can compete in high platforms, we know that these kind of matches can fall for any side,” said Cardoso in conversation with Teko Modise on Sundowns TV.
“We need to be very ambitious this season, but ambition can be negative if you don’t align behaviours with it.
“Steve Komphela said, ‘We win, we celebrate, we’re not happy but it’s not enough’. If we feel we have something special, we gonna create an opportunity to lose and we cannot.
“We need to focus on the next one [MTN8], that’s a challenge ahead. After that, we have championship matches and it’s a competition we need to regain, obviously it’s a strong objective for the season.
“Then we have a Super Cup, it’s a very strong objective. Having a possibility to put a third continental [trophy] in five months, it takes us to a point where nobody has done that in a country.
“Big trophies come with big possibilities; we need to understand how we need to behave.
“We have strong opponents to qualify for the CAF Champions League, and we must take ourselves to the limit. Also, I’m not sure how we gonna be able to cope with all competitions we have locally. But we have to trust the boys that they will step up.
“Then we will go for the Challenger Cup, it can be Fluminense, Flamengo, Palmeiras, one of the best Argentinian team, it can be Toluca, but we will study the teams and take weight off the players.”