Sundowns’ Cardoso hails dominant victory over Stade Malien
· Citizen
Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso praised his side’s commanding performance after a comfortable first-leg quarter-final victory in the CAF Champions League against Stade Malien at Loftus Versfeld Stadium on Friday night.
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Goals from Khuliso Mudau, Brayan León and Iqraam Rayners secured the win for the Brazilians, putting them firmly on course for a place in the semi-finals of Africa’s premier club competition.
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Sundowns initially struggled to break down the Malian side’s defence before Mudau broke the deadlock in the 34th minute after a slow start by the hosts.
“I think in the first 20 minutes, we didn’t respect ourselves and we showed too much respect to our opponents. After that period, the team started accelerating,” Cardoso said.
“We played with the right rhythm and we were not sloppy on the approach to the match. The players were committed and tried to play the way we trained and used the spaces we knew that we would find.
“It looked easy after 35 minutes where we could find space where we could increase the score. You must remember that teams on the continent couldn’t win against Malien and we should respect the opponents we played.”
‘Second half was beautiful’
Masandawana raised the tempo after the break, with León doubling the lead nine minutes into the second half before Rayners came off the bench to seal the result with 16 minutes remaining.
Cardoso said he was pleased with how his players responded to his half-time team talk and managed the game to take a strong advantage into the return leg in Bamako next Sunday.
“The second half was very beautiful with a good management of the game and some players that played on Tuesday were starting to get tired,” he added.
“Nuno Santos dropped a little bit of the energy despite a fantastic performance. It was the same with Arthur Sales and Tashreeq Matthews who is in the period of Ramadan. The substitutions that we made also gave us what we needed in terms of managing the match.
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“Marcelo Allende and Themba Zwane did very well and Iqraam Rayners brought energy. Monnapule Saleng also brought energy and some threat and I think the result was fair. A victory with goals and without any goals conceded and that was our objective.”