Continental redemption on the line for Mamelodi Sundowns, Miguel Cardoso

The Portuguese tactician has suffered heartbreak in his previous two final appearances – first with Esperance and then with Sundowns last season.  

Cardoso, who views reaching three successive finals as a significant achievement, is now eager to finally lift Africa’s premier club trophy while also ending The Brazilians’ decade-long wait for continental success. 

"I will never take whatever happened in the previous final matches as a failure or whatever happens in the next final," said Cardoso.

"I feel I belong to a very [small] group of coaches that arrived and had the possibility to experience consecutive Champions League finals in their careers, and it's a privilege to be among them.

READ: Cardoso calls for Portuguese coaches to be celebrated

"Obviously, if I look back, do I regret anything that I did? I don't because I worked so hard in preparation for all those matches, and I also know that just small details didn't allow us to arrive at the trophy.

"Yesterday I was sitting down with my son, who came to watch the match, and we were discussing what we achieved in this period we've been at Sundowns and what we want to achieve for the future. 

"And obviously there are pages we want to open and objectives we want to achieve, and this is obviously the main one that we have at hand now.

"So let's leave it fully with the compromise of preparations that allows us, whatever happens in the end, to feel that we did our part, and let's control the details so that we make it fall in our favour."