Mamelodi Sundowns kick-off their FIFA Club World Cup campaign – representing South Africa – on Wednesday morning when they take on Asian side, Ulsan Hyundai, at the Inter & Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida, in the United States of America.
The Brazilians earned their ticket to the global tournament through the CAF ranking pathway after a sustained spell of success and impressive performances displayed in continental competitions in the past four years.
Coach Miguel Cardoso’s charges have been pitted against three of the many great Clubs that have dominated their respective domestic and continental competitions. Asia’s Ulsan HD, Brazil’s Fluminense FC, and Germany’s Borussia Dortmund are the three teams placed in Group F together with Masandawana.
The fixture against Ulsan marks the beginning of a challenging yet entertaining train of matches against powerhouses. While looking ahead to the opening match for the Pretoria-based side, coach Miguel stated that the tournament presents a different type of challenge, but he is backing his side to give their best and make the most of each meeting.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how we perform against an Asian team, as well as Dortmund and Fluminense. These are three different tests, and we have to make the most of them all,” the coach said.
“We have to collect points first, and this requires a distinguished performance in Wednesday’s match. I know the competition will be tough, but it will be a great experience. We have to push ourselves to the limit to exceed expectations in the tournament.”
For the Portugal-born tactician, the tournament will be about self-belief. Victory against Ulsan HD will spark the hopes of Bafana Ba Style reaching the knockout stages of the competition for the first time.
“All the teams in the tournament believe in their ability to advance to the next round. Obviously, for us, it would be an incredible achievement to go through the group stage, but before we achieve that, we need to get points. So, we need to play a very complete match tomorrow.”
“I know it’s going to be tough, but I expect it to be beautiful. We need to take it to the limit. There is a ceiling you need to go through to understand what level we are playing, and now, we just show what we can do and take the results as they come,” the coach concluded.
Mamelodi Sundowns will clash against Ulsan HD on Wednesday morning at eh Inter & Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida. Kick-off has been scheduled for 00H00 SAST, live on Supersport TV and DAZN.
I’m very disappointed in our webmaster I mean Downs are participating in a big world event but he/she was busy telling us about our ladies team here in SA.This people are not doing their job they must be expelled and get capable people since the days of our President our webmaster is so poor in publishing current news of our team.
Everything we hear about our team comes from other publications even the released of Coetze and Mbule and the departure of Suarez wr didn’t get from our own but expect our team to grow in numbers whereas we are still failing just to market our team,Downs is in US since last week but we don’t get anything from this website except this post from the coach.
If we continue like this We will not grow our brand seriously maybe they’re reporting on social media but not all of us have an access on that except opera mini and Google,lastly goodluck on tonight’s game and I hope our goalkeeper and his defence learnt from Champs league that sense of urgency is needed not only good football that doesn’t yield results.South Koreans are playing carpet football and they are strong also pls don’t take them lightly,Kby forever
Congrats to the team for the win against Ulson HD, thanks to the technical team to field a more positive line up and top it all with Mshishi on the line up.Cupido is a good signing and we need to partner him with Mvala until we find another speedy centre back, Kekana is playing well however when we press high ,he gets exposed easily by through balls from the oponents, its risky to play him and Lebusa however with lack of pacy centre backs I guess its all we have.I watched the match between Dortmund and fluminense, and I feel we can beat Dortmund if we are clinical in front of goals ,their defence cant run at all, however let us work hard and not take them lightly as that will work against us.I am confident we will come out of this group alive especially if we stick to what we know best and not want to immitate their style of play.Are social media news about Fiston true?KBY