SuperSport are smarting after losing the Confederation Cup final to Congolese giants TP Mazembe on the weekend, going down 2-1 across two legs.
Matsatsantsa, who will compete in Africa again after retaining the Nedbank Cup in June, will resume their Premiership campaign against Ajax Cape Town at Mbombela Stadium on Wednesday night.
Eric Tinkler's men have only played five league matches this season due to their continental exploits - seven less games than log leaders Baroka.
"The journey has been good," said Matthews.
"The boys have held our name up, they have made us tremendously proud. I think we have taken a bit of a shift upwards as a football club because of this journey.
"I think the league has to be our biggest priority for us now. We had an African adventure which was nice, but now we have to get back to the bread and butter of football which is PSL and the league, and we want to be up their in top three this year."
Matthews said the Tshwane club will carefully allocate their resources come the new year.
"If we are in a decent position domestically by the time CAF comes around in February we will see what kind of squad we will put up. I don't think in the preliminary stages we will field the full-strength team. We will go again with the development route and try push one or two fringe players, give them more experience in that format."
He added: "I don't think overall the tournament was attractive to us to jeopardise our domestic season. We hanged in there all along the way as we went further, we had to do it. If you have to ask me whether we put all our energies in the CAF basket or in the PSL basket, I will put my energies in the PSL every day, where at least we know the level of professionalism and we know at least there is a degree of accountability with officials."