Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has shed light on the approach he used to bring Portuguese talents Nuno Santos and Miguel Reisinho to Chloorkop.
Following a busy off-season that saw several departures from the squad, the Brazilians welcomed just two local additions—Fawaaz Basadien and Tsiki Ntsabeleng—before securing the international signings of Santos from Vitória Guimarães and Reisinho from Boavista.
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Cardoso always expressed his desire to strengthen his attack following the departure of Lucas Ribeiro and has high expectations for the new additions.
Sundowns managed to prise Santos away from Guimaraes for a reported R20m, while Reisinho was a free transfer following his recent exit from fellow Liga Portugal side Boavista.
“His (Santos) club needed to release players and make money to manage their own organisation. Nuno also wanted a challenge abroad that could provide him with different opportunities and the name of Sundowns seduced him after the FIFA Club World Cup and also due to the fact that I’m a Portuguese coach,” explained Cardoso.
“It’s important that we understand that it’s not easy to bring these kinds of players. We were able to wait for the end of the market and not only waited for them but we waited for other players and things didn’t work out. At the last minute, these two opportunities appeared and let’s hope they can impact the team the way we want them to.
“The situation of Nuno and Miguel is not the same because Nuno was training and playing too but Miguel was training but not playing officially. Miguel had a couple of opportunities that didn’t work out.
“That gave us the opportunity at the last minute to bring him in as a free agent. He (Reisinho) trained with us and he was with us in camp and that was for him to adapt. We have a friendly match and he will play 30 minutes and we have a full week so let’s see how he responds.”
Santos has already played twice for Sundowns, picking up a Man-of-the-match award for his performance in the 4-1 victory over Richards Bay last time out.
Reisinho could make his debut in the Carling Knockout first round clash at the weekend. Kick off at the Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium is set for 20h00 on Saturday, 04 October 2025.