Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has revealed how the club plans to improve the squad for next season but says their performance at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup leads to a risk of losing players too.
Sundowns were eliminated from Group F, missing out on the last-16 by one point to Fluminense after their goaless draw against the Brazilian giants on Wednesday afternoon at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida.
While they won plenty of plaudits, it was the end of Africa at the global event, with all four; Al Ahly, Esperance, Wydad AC and Sundowns all suffering group stage exits.
Perhaps it was a stark reminder of the gulf in quality with the Brazilian and European sides all advancing to the next rounds of the competition – which offered insight into where Sundowns and the rest of Africa’s contingent can improve their respective squads.
“We have a wonderful group of players and maybe even too many players but we play in a a very tough competition, in South African context with so many games with short intervals between matches,” Cardoso said.
“We want to reduce the number of players in the team, make a smaller team, smaller group but also bring in more quality, so reduce but bring more quality – so that we have… we already have more than one player with high quality in each position, more than two.
“But we need to have two who can replace each other 100%, that is what we need to do – in some positions we need two-and-a-half players, like full-backs, we need to have two on each side, plus one, that’s why I say two-and-a-half – like five [players].
“We know we play a lot, every three, or four days, it increases the number of injuries we may have, so we need to be careful. We won’t change a lot but there’s some obvious… let’s see what happens with our players.”
Cardoso is also mindful that some of the players who impressed, may be subject of interest from clubs around the world, having showcased their talent on the global stage in the United States of America this month.
“When you play like we did, there’s a big risk of losing players, I don’t have problems losing players because I think my job is to do that, provide opportunities for the others to become better,” he added.
“I know I work in a club that doesn’t like to sell players, because we like to have stability, which I like, so it’s what we might go for.
“We’re out the competition and now we have five weeks until the beginning of the next season. The players will get a few weeks vacation, these boys need some rest.”
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