The Brazilians suffered a late blow when their Egyptian counterparts equalised at the death after it looked like the victory was secured.

Pyramids will welcome Sundowns to the 30 June Stadium knowing a goalless draw would be enough for them to clinch their maiden continental title, and Cardoso says his players will have to raise their level in Cairo.

"The attitude of champions is seen when things don't go well, because when things are just flowers, let's say, and everything is beautiful, it's very easy to be a champion," said Cardoso.

"Champions get up when things are [tough] and they show themselves in difficult situations, and I think we have a match of 90 minutes to play so we have to take the responsibility of playing to score one goal, and go from there."

The Sundowns mentor also explained why captain Themba Zwane did not feature in the first leg, with his minutes having been heavily managed of late.

"We have to manage Themba like all the other players, everybody wanted to be part of this match, for sure, but the decisions we made was in order to keep the balance of the team," he added.

"We thought that [these] were the best ones, and you know it's very beautiful football or very ugly at the same time because the final 10 seconds of the game changed the way you all think about us, and the decisions we made.

"If we had not suffered that goal everybody would say that the coach was fantastic and he didn't touch the team, or get the team imbalanced, he made the best choices.

"We are under judgement according to the results we get, and it was one play – one dangerous action they had in the box, because in the second half we controlled it.

"We then suffered one goal and that changed the opinion of everybody, that's clear what it is. We just have to hang on it, keep the boys motivated, push for the second leg and that's it."

READ: Miguel Cardoso reminds critics of long journey to success

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