Mamelodi Sundowns lifted the FIFA African-Asian-Pacific Cup two weeks ago after beating Al Ahli Saudi and now turn their focus to Saturday’s MTN8 final against Orlando Pirates at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
Beyond that encounter, Cardoso has identified several other competitions as key targets. The CAF Super Cup is among the Portuguese coach’s priorities as he looks to add more continental success to the club’s honours in a short space of time.
Sundowns will also be determined to reclaim the Betway Premiership after Pirates took the league crown last season. Cardoso has further ambitions in the FIFA Challenger Cup as his side prepares for a demanding schedule spanning domestic, continental and international competitions.
“We are the living proof that we can compete in high platforms, we know that these kind of matches can fall for any side,” said Cardoso in conversation with Teko Modise on Sundowns TV.
“We need to be very ambitious this season, but ambition can be negative if you don’t align behaviours with it.
“Steve Komphela said, ‘We win, we celebrate, we’re not happy but it’s not enough’. If we feel we have something special, we gonna create an opportunity to lose and we cannot.
“We need to focus on the next one [MTN8], that’s a challenge ahead. After that, we have championship matches and it’s a competition we need to regain, obviously it’s a strong objective for the season.
“Then we have a Super Cup, it’s a very strong objective. Having a possibility to put a third continental [trophy] in five months, it takes us to a point where nobody has done that in a country.
“Big trophies come with big possibilities; we need to understand how we need to behave.
“We have strong opponents to qualify for the CAF Champions League, and we must take ourselves to the limit. Also, I’m not sure how we gonna be able to cope with all competitions we have locally. But we have to trust the boys that they will step up.
“Then we will go for the Challenger Cup, it can be Fluminense, Flamengo, Palmeiras, one of the best Argentinian team, it can be Toluca, but we will study the teams and take weight off the players.”