Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso has stepped up to the challenge of facing Fluminense in their Group F decider in the FIFA Club World Cup.
Sundowns need nothing short of a win against the Brazilian club at the Hard Rock Stadium on Wednesday (21:00 SA time) if they are to proceed to the Last 16.
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Coming out alive will be a huge achievement for the PSL champions, who won their first ever match at this tournament against Ulsan HD just over a week ago.
"We know what we are playing for and know what is at stake and we know what we want," says Cardoso.
"But we also know the level of the opponent that we are facing.
"We are all aware of the difficulties that we have ahead, but we know that a long time ago we made it a dream and an objective.
"Since we won the first match, we knew that we had two chances to try and qualify for the next round of the competition.
"The two objectives since then were that we have to fight as much as possible to the limit of our capacity and to the last minute of each match to get the best result possible like we did against Dortmund.
"[Against Fluminense] we expect a very competitive match with the teams taking care of the defence.
"I don’t expect a closed game, but I expect that teams will fight for a result.
"Both teams will want to win and there will be no one fighting for nothing more than the victory.
"Even when you have the desire, you have to be cautious and cope with all moments of the game.
"We need to take the game as much as possible to our comfort zone because when we do that, the effort below is the one that we train.
"If the game is taken to their comfort zone and we play a game that we don’t usually play, then the effort we are putting is more aggressive for us because it is not the effort that we usually use in training.
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"I don’t expect a lot of crazy counter-attack action.
"I don’t like chaos when we play because you don’t control the spaces," details Cardoso, speaking at the pre-match press conference.
Photo: Eurasia Sport Images
