Cardoso: ‘Sundowns attitude has to be stronger’

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has cautioned his charges that the job is not yet done despite chalking an away 1-0 victory over Espérance Tunis in the CAF Champions League semifinal on Sunday.

Striker Brayan León scored the only important goal of the semifinal, first leg. The Colombian rose above his marker in the box to head into the net from Khuliso Mudau’s right-flank high cut-back.

Adams
Mudau
Leon

WHAT A GOAL ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/K9l9e7uYk8

— Mazola J. Molefe (@superjourno) April 12, 2026

The maximum points collected on the road gave the 2016 CAF Champions League winners an advantage going into the reverse match scheduled for Pretoria on Saturday, 18 April.

In a post-match interview, Cardoso detailed how tight the contest was, saying he made tactical adjustments for the South African giants to eventually get the important away goal.

How Cardoso tweaked Sundowns game-plan

“The match was what I expected,” said the coach. “Despite wanting to have the match played on the highest level for us in terms of possession and capacity to look for spaces and find the players we wanted to position in certain spaces; it was not really mission accomplished.”

The Portuguese mentor then explained how he tweaked his gameplan at the break to create more spaces and seize control of the match.

“So, at half time, despite that we made a better first half than the second, the positioning was not exactly what we wanted. We were not in certain moments able to establish we wanted to play.

We made some corrections at half time. Obviously, the goal gave us an emotional important moment and the energy to take the match up to the end.”

Cardoso said the loss of defender Grant Kekana to a red card with six minutes to full time even made life difficult for the Betway Premiership defending champions.

🎞️ Match Highlights:
Mamelodi Sundowns clinch an impressive win in Rades vs ES Tunis. #TotalEnergiesCAFCL pic.twitter.com/w9pCVmbAja

— TotalEnergies CAFCL & CAFCC 🏆 (@CAFCLCC) April 12, 2026

“The reaction was what to expect from a team like Esperance, a big reaction supported by this public that is amazing, giving energy and pushing the team forward, lots of substitutions in terms of pushing the numbers upfront and we had to make tactical approach.

After we lost Grant, the game became trickier. The intention was to close the game and take it the to the next stage,” he said.

All to play for in semifinal, second leg

Cardoso stressed the need to approach the semifinal second leg match scheduled for Loftus Versfeld Stadium with utmost commitment and professionalism.

“The attitude in Pretoria has to be much stronger, even more commitment, even more tactical strictness, even more control of the match and to play to win because when you don’t play to win, you can suffer and that is the only way the team knows to play,” he said.

Sundowns need either a draw or a win by any margin to sail through while Esperance will be required to register a two-goal margin victory to overcome the South African opposition.

The overall winner between Sundowns and Esperance will meet either AS FAR or RS Berkane in the Champions League final.