Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso says Orlando Pirates’ early struggles in the league and their past achievements in the MTN 8 Cup don’t bother him as he believes that high level matches are always about who wants to win the most.
Pirates have endured a surprise start to the new league campaign, as they are winless and pointless in two matches and with inconsistencies in their starting XIs.
However they are the most successful side in the MTN8 Cup currently and campaigning for a fourth successive crown. Ahead of the semi-final first leg in Orlando, Cardoso says the past doesn’t concern him much, especially because he hasn’t played against the Buccaneers in this competition.
“I understand your question, [but] it’s not really something I relate with regarding the past,” said Cardoso.
“I never look at the past. I just want to write the future and live the present in order to write the future. I was not even here in South Africa when cups were played between the teams.
“It’s the first time we’re going to play each other on a Cup match. That’s why I stated, before what I did, that this kind of matches first whistle puts us in another dimension and the team that may be better or worse or in the same level in the match before, has nothing to do with what will happen in these matches. It’s a story that is completely different.
“There’s a lot of emotionality behind. There’s a lot of ambience around. There’s a lot of players that on these matches, they show themselves in levels that before they were not there.
“So I think what is important is that the team that wants to get the result must, on these matches really show that additional standard angle to the best as possible as they can do. That’s what I hope we’re going to do in these two matches, we need not to play one, but two very competitive matches with the intentionality to be very competitive so that we can win more duels, we can have more balls.
“We can find the right spaces to play, we can address the opponent, we can cope with aggressions that we’re going to suffer, for sure, because the game, as I said, is also to have different moments.
“And then the level of awareness to prevent suffering goals, and the level of awareness that allows us to in the right moments, also to make ours to be so sure, two very beautiful games with a lot of emotionality to deal.
“I hope we all and people around and players and the coaches and management and everybody and the referees also live the right emotions that must believe in this kind of games.”
