Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has revealed the first leg of the 2025 CAF Champions League final against Pyramids FC as the toughest match in his tenure as Masandawana mentor.
In his first season as Sundowns coach, Cardoso led the Brazilians to the final of Africa’s premium inter-club competition, at the time his second final in a row in the competition.
However, Bafana Ba Style could not take advantage in front of their home fans as they conceded late to draw the match 1-1 in a tightly contested affair.
The Egyptians turned things around at home winning the second leg 2-1 and lifted he trophy for the very first time with a 3-2 aggregate score-line.
Cardoso said he understands his players wanted to secure the result by defending too low. He added that what made the game painful wasn’t just their late equaliser but how Walid El Karti’s goal changed the dynamic of the tie.
“The home match with Pyramids 100%, because as much as I see that game, and I think the goal from Pyramids is a sequence of mistakes, I think that it was painful because that goal changed a lot the dynamic of a final,” said Cardoso on Mamelodi Sundowns TV.
“And I understood also that it would be very difficult to eventually overcome it. We could, but it would be difficult to overcome that emotional moment when you suffer the goal in the last minutes. You know I’m the kind of coach that thinks that defending matches is not putting defenders; is putting people in the front, is threatening the opponent.
“But I also think that protecting results is having the ball, and that’s something that nowadays we are doing better. I think we are doing better, but still, we are always on that. Even this match, I think we could have stayed more times with the ball up until the end. So, we go back on that, and that Pyramids match, I felt that the players wanted to defend low, wanted to protect the result.
“As I said, I always try to give the right answers to the questions the game puts. But I also like to take the game to the side where I also sometimes can say sorry, but I don’t want to give those answers, I just want to give these ones because this is us. This is what we can control, and we are better on that.
“You know throughout the season, how many matches you have where your defence is really stimulated on the behaviours defensively, like let’s organize and defend in a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1. We don’t have those we just have transitions. So, when you arrive in a Champions League match and you go for the highest level, and then you are challenged, okay, now we don’t have the ball, whoops! This is a different reality.
“If we don’t have the ball, we defend like this, if we defend like that, because compactness and defending well also allows you to make good transitions. Defending well makes you attack better. Attacking better makes you defend better. And the game is a whole. There’s no attack, defence, the phases of the game they are completely engaged ones on the others.”