New Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has detailed possession and aggressive play as areas of concern he has noticed at the club that needs improvement.
Cardoso replaced Manqoba Mngqithi this week and will have his real big test in the CAF Champions League against Raja CA in at home this weekend.
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He was in charge of Esperance de Tunis when they eliminated Sundowns from Africa’s elite club competition, saying he studied the side then and even in the current campaign before joining them.
The coach says it was these areas that he aims to improve that helped him defeat the Brazilians. Cardoso believes his squad has players capable to deliver on how he wants to play, as a coach who wants to impose himself in matches quality he hasn’t had elsewhere.
“Obviously, I already knew the team. We had to study it very deeply last year to face the two games of the semi-final of the Champions league,” Cardoso told the media.
“Only with that deep study, we were capable to overcome the difficulties that we had. And that’s part of the job of a coach to be updated, also on the best teams in Africa, in the world even to follow the patterns of the development of the game itself.
“But to enter the job, there was another moment of preparation where we studied not only what was happening, because that was the most important part, what was happening now during this season with the team, how the team was playing, and also understanding, obviously, the players deeply themselves, what are their capacities.
“So, we have to study the team and the players, and it’s obvious and clear that the players we have they are technically well developed, they suit the game of a coach that wants to impose himself on the games, because this is the base to have quality players.
“I struggled a lot to impose myself in other contexts where the quality could not sustain what indeed I wanted to put in going on, and that’s what I want.”
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The Portuguese mentor added that he wants his team to keep possession and be aggressive especially when they don’t have the ball and that’s what he will be focusing on immediately.
“I want a team that can control the games,” added the 52-year-old.
“It means that the team must be solid in all the four moments of the game.
“Must understand very well what to do with the ball, obviously, but as I have in mind, clear, you have to have the ball to move, not the ball but the opponent, in order to find the right spaces to attack those spaces.
“I know obviously when you play Sundowns, we really need to understand this question of the spaces. Where are the spaces? How we create, how we should utilise and use the spaces that are in the game.
“So having control of the game has also to do with being very aggressive in the moment you lose the ball. Because as much as you control the game, or as much you are aggressive, there’s a moment where you’re going to lose the ball, and you need that moment to be very, very strong. I think it’s a moment that the team needs to grow a lot.
“And for that, you need to have huge solidarity among the players, because I prefer the players to run for three, four seconds and make an effort to recover the ball immediately, rather than coming down reorganize and defend to win the ball and then having to go forward again. And I think that moment can give us a lot in the future.
“So, that’s one of the things you’ll have to work from the very first day and we have players for that, because we have players with that mentality that need to be probably stimulated in order to put going on, they need to be closer to each other for that moment and that comes from the offensive organization,” Cardoso added.
