Miguel Cardoso credits team culture for Bryan Leon’s rapid impact

The Colombian forward continued his fine start to life at Sundowns by scoring his second Betway Premiership goal in as many matches, as the Brazilians secured a 2-0 victory away to Sekhukhune United to maintain their grip on top spot.

Cardoso explained Leon’s swift integration. 

"Look when I came to Sundowns, I felt a very easy adaptation. Sundowns is a very friendly club, the relations between people are very friendly despite the level of professionalism that we need to have, the relationships are friendly,” Cardoso said.

“The locker room is very healthy, so, it's very easy obviously for a player to adapt in this kind of club than others and obviously sometimes people say you have a group of Portuguese, Spanish, Brazilian players and they share together. 

“It's normal obviously that when we sit to eat they speak within themselves. Brian doesn't speak English, Miguel doesn't speak English, Nuno [Santos] speaks quite well, Marcelo [Allende] speaks more but they manage, those players are very important of course in terms of helping him to feel at home. 

“He's a very positive player in terms of mindset and I think that positive mindset helps him a lot to succeed in what he did." 

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The coach applauded the work rate of his other strikers in Lebo Mothiba, Iqraam Rayners and Peter Shalulile. 

"I want to highlight the work that Lebo did in the two previous matches, I would like to highlight the work that Iqraam has been doing for this team since he came from Stellenbosch and the goals that he has scored and the work that he did. Today he had a very tough job at the beginning of the match with the opponents having those three centre backs,” the coach added. 

“Also how Peter Shalulile is always someone we can count on for everything and mostly for quality. He had three actions and all of them could have been goals and the second goal is an assist from him, I'd like to also highlight that."