Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has shared his thoughts on what he makes of Kaizer Chiefs’ hiatus ahead of the two teams’ blockbuster clash in the capital at Lucas Moripe Stadium on Saturday (15:30).

Nasreddine Nabi’s charges were last in action on 18 February when they were thrashed 4-1 by SuperSport United. They were scheduled to take on financially troubled Royal AM, but the KZN club couldn’t honor the fixture as the PSL suspended all their remaining matches indefinitely.

Meanwhile, the defending champions played a day after Amakhosi’s thumping and went on to play two extra games to make it three matches since Chiefs’ last outing. Sundowns’ last match was a 4-2 win over Sekhukhune United on Wednesday.

However, the Downs mentor says he cannot classify his opponents’ small break as an advantage or a disadvantage to his side as he doesn’t know what Nabi did with his squad behind closed doors in Naturena during that time frame.

“I don’t know what they did during this period, so I cannot say it was good or bad for sure. What I know for sure is that the coach, as a [high] level coach that he is, worked hard to develop his team,” said Cardoso.

“He knows what lies ahead, he knows the responsibility of his club, he’s a clever man and he’s someone that also has a very good quality as a coach, so for sure he worked very hard to develop his team and then in the last days of this period he worried about us.

“Before he worried about his team getting better and better. And then a strategic approach, that’s what he did.” 

On teams that have played fewer games than them, like title challengers Orlando Pirates, Cardoso acknowledges the situation is out of the teams’ hands. But the 52-year-old tactician admits he would prefer teams to have the same schedule and number of games in the league.

“It would be normal that teams play on the same day, or one day after or a day before with a similar schedule. It’s never possible for teams to play exactly on the same days because there’s TV rights,” the Portuguese gaffer noted.

“There’s management of dates, there’s security issues, there’s also availability of stadiums, so there’s always conditioning on the dates. But it would be normal [for teams] to have a similar calendar as much as possible.

“Also, Chiefs have no responsibility that Royal AM is not competing, they have no responsibility in this situation, so it can happen like that. They will do the job; we will do our job in the best way, we have to cope with the context.”

The Brazilians will be keen to do a league double over the Glamour Boys as they won the first meeting controversially in September 2024. On the other hand, Chiefs will be in search of a first league win over Sundowns since the 2020/21 season.