Cardoso not focused on Pirates in title race

With the Betway Premiership title race starting to heat up, Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso maintains that they’re only focused on their own affairs following the 4-1 win at home to TS Galaxy on Saturday.

The Brazilians maintained their 12-point lead over second-placed Pirates, who have three games in hand. Masandawana are on 48 points after 18 games, but should Pirates win their outstanding three matches, the gap could eventually be cut down to three points.

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“I know they have games in hand and at some point, they have to play these games, and if we win our games, it can eventually be an advantage. But if we lose points, it won’t be like that, so let’s wait and see,” Cardoso said.

“We’ve got an advantage after the match (against Pirates) and two days later, we immediately lost three points away to Galaxy, so we need to focus on our job. We need to win games so that we obviously have a number of points that, in the end, allow us to win the league, but there are still a lot of games.”

The defending champions have a big week ahead of them in their quest to retain their title for a record-extending eighth successive time. They will first play Sekhukhune United at the Old Peter Mokaba Stadium on Wednesday, before the epic clash against Kaizer Chiefs three days later in Tshwane.

“I haven’t seen anything from Sekhukhune, but I know that on my phone right now and laptop, I already have the reports on Sekhukhune, and tomorrow we’ll start working on them,” Cardoso added.

“I heard about the game over there, but I think we should focus on playing football all the time. When I hear people talk about physicality, I say we should play double because if you just go there just to fight, you could lose the way you want to play the game.

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“We train one way, and we should also play the way we train. We respect all our opponents, we’ll respect Sekhukhune and we’ll work hard to understand how to play against them, and then also work hard on the right mindset to approach that game because the next game is the most important one of our lives.”