Miguel Cardoso reacts to Sundowns CL group stage qualification

The Brazilians beat Remo Stars 2-0 at Loftus Stadium on Sunday afternoon to make the overall score an emphatic 7-1, which guarantees they are among the 16 teams in the draw early next month. 

Nuno Santos and Peter Shalulile bagged a goal each, with Cardoso satisfied with the approach considering their big first leg lead.

"Most important thing in the game was the first half, considering the strong attitude we brought on the pitch, and the quality of football played throughout the first half. The dynamic control, the dominance, it's not easy to motivate the team to play this way after you win away 5-1 and you basically sealed the qualification,” Cardoso said.

“Obviously, I didn't want to speak about that but it's clear when you win 5-1, it's a big difference on this level for another team to be able to come back on the result. But the attitude was very professional throughout the week, we knew we wanted to score goals, we wanted to win again, we wanted to score points for the CAF ranking. 

“We want to highlight the football of Mamelodi Sundowns and the quality of the players, we wanted to highlight the work we are doing in terms of growing the team. We wanted to highlight football in South Africa of course."

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Cardoso then used the rest of the encounter to give minutes to players who’ve had little game time, while also treading carefully with injuries. 

"At half-time you are winning 2-0 and then the objectives of the match changes a little bit considering the management of the players. Bring on the pitch players that need extra motivation and give them minutes,” the coach added. 

“I think the objectives that we had for this match were all accomplished, even taking out Keanu [Cupido], trying to avoid that he could get injured. The management of the game, obviously the quality dropped in the second half which is absolutely understandable but congratulations to the players. 

“The players made a wonderful qualification for the Champions League group stage and obviously they need my congratulations for the character they put from the first minute of the first match and throughout all the qualifying round."