Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has explained what type of a coach he is, having hit the floor running at the pressure cooker club like Tshwane giants where it is a sink or swim. 

With Sundowns sitting pretty at the top of the Betway Premiership table, the former Espérance Sportive de Tunis coach even won the November/December coach of the month award. 

“I’m a coach that makes a great effort to try to be clever,” Cardoso said as they moved to 54 points after 20 matches after beating Kaizer Chiefs 1-0 on Saturday.  

“It’s clear that there will always be proactivity in the way you approach the match. So, there’s a way when playing the match that has to do basically with the approach to play. 

“But then there’s small adjustments that you need to pass to the players, what will happen to them in the game, like the style of the game they are going to face. So, I think that is proactivity on how we are going to face the match, and it happened against Kaizer Chiefs. 

“So, I try to be clever when the game is giving us challenges as I did against Chiefs for fielding many attacking players. I think after that we were more in control of the ball because sometimes you defend with the players and sometimes you have to defend with the system. 

“I always think that I have to help the players as much as I can. Sometimes I make mistakes when I’m helping them because I’m a man, and as a man you can make mistakes. 

“What I like about them is that they work hard to not expose my mistakes, and this is fantastic when you have a team like that.” 

While Cardoso tries to be clever to stay ahead of the pack, he also has to contend with the fact that he is dealing with international players who are key to their national teams. 

Bafana Bafana will resume the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers this month against Lesotho and Benin, and Cardoso has been forced to manage Bafana players in the club because of the schedule 

“Regarding calendars, it’s not up to me, but what I know is that the World Cup is the important tournament for us, the world, South Africans and Africans in general,” he said.

“So, I accept the kind of these competitions. It makes the schedule tougher and that’s a reflection that is not up to me and I don’t have control over fixtures. 

“I think I have a big commitment in terms of managing the players in the best way. I think, as much as we believe in all of them, but we know that they are not equal, and we have national team players that need to perform because they want to be there. 

“I think we need to have good communication, we need to give them rest as much as possible. There’s a lot of hard work on managing players, not only from me but from all the management of the club.” 

Sundowns will be back in action when they visit Golden Arrows at Mpumalanga Stadium on Wednesday.