Esperance coach Miguel Cardoso ecstatic after Sundowns win

Esperance coach Miguel Cardoso has heaped praise on his players following the 1-0 win over Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus Versfeld in the semifinal of the Caf Champions League.

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Esperance ran out 2-0 winners on aggregate over the Brazilians that just didn’t do enough to reach the final of the coveted continental club championship.

The Tunisian giants will face Al-Ahly in the final and fight for the right to be crowned African champions with the first leg set to be played on May 12 in a North African derby.

“Firstly, I want to say that I’m really happy. It’s an important moment for me personally but there’s an expression that says there’s no good captain without the blood of the soldiers,” Cardoso said after the match.

“I’m happy because my players did a really good job. It’s not easy to play here. I have a lot of respect for our opponent because it’s not easy to play [against them]. I repeat that I have big respect for our opponents but I also have big respect for my team because no one wins here if they don’t have big respect for themselves. You have to understand each and every moment of the game and you have to suffer a lot and know how give your body to the bullets using the war expression.

“But most important of all, you have to profit from the right moments and that is exactly what we did. There’s no winner in life without a little bit of chance and it’s not really difficult for me to recognise that we had our moment and took our chance but you don’t do that if you put in a big job behind it. I have my locker happy, my president happy, all the staff of the club happy and I’m sure that I also have a big part of Tunisia very happy which is very important for this club.”

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The four-time Champions League winners outsmarted Sundowns who failed to break down their stubborn defence over both legs.

They parked the bus for the majority of the game and pounced in the second half to knock the Brazilians out of the competition.