Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso says Themba Zwane was immense over the past two weeks and deserved his start in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup opener against Ulsan HD this evening.
Zwane, 35, was a surprise inclusion in the starting line-up as they beat the K-League champions 1-0 to move top of Group F ahead of Borussia Dortmund and Fluminense who played to a goalless draw earlier in the day.
It comes off the back of Cardoso being hammered in the media and by former players of the club for not offering the influential playmaker a minute of football as they lost the CAF Champions League two-legged final to Pyramids FC.
There was suggestions Zwane was the missing creative force in the Sundowns midfield that could have unlocked the North African side’s defence but Cardoso was defiant, his decision was not made by force or giving in to public pressure.
“Themba, there’s no ghosts from the past at all, or on me, the pressures from inside the club, with the board, with my players, you have pressure when you settle in career of coaching like me,” he said after the game.
“What happens is that Themba made a helluva two weeks preparation so that is the respect we need to have. People spoke a lot about that – it seems people didn’t understand he comes from a process of growth, since the moment he could enter the team and train.
“It’s important to give him the right opportunities so he can perform, and today was the right opportunity for him to play – so I had no problems to put him in, even having the risk to let people think I’m putting in because of pressure.
“No it’s not, I made [the decision] consciously, without any kind of force, because I have such respect for my players that they know I don’t joke with them, we play fair, we trust and we have a lot of values in our locker room that go beyond the question that was raised in the press.
“We have strong values, we trust each other, I trust my administration and they trust me and we will continue moving forward until the day life happens.”
Cardoso also stated that the win over Ulsan was not easy and on the basis of the game, after having goals ruled out, it created a tense final stage of the fixture, as they managed to secure three points, their first-ever victory at the tournament.
“We are very happy to be in this experience, fulfilling dreams, and making it an objective of winning a game at a FIFA Club World Cup in this new format of the tournament, it’a not easy to achieve victory, it was a long way until this moment,” Cardoso said.
“We used alot of energy in the right way, before, during and after, but we have the right emotions, the team found the right place, where to start the match, we prepared it tactically and stategically and we found the commitment between everybody which was important to really play it according to the preparation we had.
“We made a very wonderful first half, it was important that we could keep the pace and not go away from the game plan to try and score the second goal, which was small details, centimeters, we could not do it.
“As time goes by having a margin on 1-0 in the score, normally there will be an intention to keep the results so the last minutes we didn’t play as much as we’d like but we created chances and we’re happy for the first win of the tournament, I’m happy for the players and the joy the give to the country, their families and to the club.”
Sundowns will now turn their attention to Borussia Dortmund, who they face on Saturday evening at the TQL Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio.
