Sundowns hierarchy put their money on Cardoso

Mamelodi Sundowns’ new coach Miguel Cardoso, his chair Tlhopie Motsepe and technical director Flemming Berg passionately defended his one-trophy record and said there is far more to his CV than that statistic that qualifies him for the Brazilians’ hot seat.

They clarified that Cardoso’s work permit and documents are in order for him to be on the bench when Downs meet Raja Casablanca in their third Caf Champions League Group B game at Loftus Versfeld on Sunday (3pm).

The 52-year-old Portuguese’s place there comes as a surprise. However the two draws — at home to minnows AS Maniema Union and away on Saturday to AS FAR in Morocco that have put Downs under pressure in the group — plus their shock Carling Knockout defeat to top flight rookies Magesi FC appear to have been the major factors in replacing Manqoba Mngqithi as coach on Tuesday.

Motsepe said Sundowns’ belief in Cardoso has shown the credentials, even though his lone trophy came steering Esperance de Tunis to this season’s Tunisian Ligue 1 title in a career that includes head coaching jobs at Rio Ave in Portugal and Celta Vigo in Spain, to indicate he will win plenty more silverware at the Pretoria club.

The coach also reached last season’s Caf Champions League final, Esperance losing 1-0 on aggregate to Al Ahly, after progressing 2-0 past Sundowns in the semifinals.

After Motsepe concluded, Cardoso jumped in to also vouch for his record, saying context is everything. “We live in a society and a sport where people judge the CVs by trophies. But sometimes they forget that to win, not only do you need to be in the context where you can truly fight to win, but also sometimes you are in a context where winning is not only getting trophies.

“For example, I have four finals of big club competitions — we won none of them.

“I’m speaking about the [2015 Uefa Under-19] Youth League with Shakhtar Donetsk [who lost 3-2 against Chelsea], the Europa League with Braga [Cardoso was assistant to Domingos Paciência as they lost 1-0 to FC Porto in 2011] and the Champions League final.

“Being in those finals is such a big trophy that when you look at my CV don’t judge because we lost that game, judge it because we won to be there.

Motsepe said the sum of the parts of Cardoso’s record is more than his one trophy.

“Coach Miguel’s CV is one that is better spoken than read. If you had a chance to speak to the coach about his experiences in Rio Ave, or Nantes in France, or at Shakhtar Donetsk you understand how much he learnt and developed and the challenges, changes and improvements he made to those teams.”

Mngqithi was joined by assistant coach Romain Folz and goalkeeper coach Wendell Robinson on Downs’ technical staff exit list. Senior coach Steve Komphela and another goalkeeper-coach. Kennedy Mweene, kept their jobs.