Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has revealed how he used the story of Springboks winger Makazole Mapimpi to motivate his side ahead of their FIFA Club World Cup match against Borussia Dortmund.
Sundowns lost the Group F encounter 4-3 much to the amazement of the world for their courageous performance. The result sees Sundowns in third position in the group with three points with a match to spare.
Cardoso revealed after the game how he relayed Mapimpi’s moving story from the 2019 Rugby World Cup told by Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus in the Docu-series Chasing the Sun.
The Boks were asked to bring family photos to be incorporated on their jersey numbers as a symbol of what and who they represent ahead of the final against England in Japan. Mapimpi only had photos of himself as he didn’t have anyone else at the time with his family members already passed.
This touched a lot of people in and outside South Africa including Cardoso who said he used that story to motivate his charges and remind them of the bigger picture while they are in the USA.
“Today we spoke about one beautiful thing,” said Cardoso.
“I don’t know if you remember the South African national team of rugby, they won the World champion [in 2019]. The head coach, what’s his name [Rassie], they made a special shirt with the photos of the families to play the celebration match.
“And there was a player that I also now cannot remember the name [Mapimpi]. He had no photos of family, and he put himself, all the photos of him on the shirt. But then the colleagues made photos of themselves and put it on his shirt, their photos.
“I used this as a beautiful example of the spirit that the team had to take inside the pitch and that coach and that team is an inspiration throughout all our season as a resilience effort and capacity they showed. And that’s what I told them.
“Look we don’t take our photos of our people in the shirts, but we take them in our hearts. We take them on our minds. And that’s also what you need to ask for in these moments, that you make those people happy.
“You make the club happy because you still fight because what speaks for you is not the results you get, is for what you fight.”
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