Miguel Cardoso says Sundowns will push Fluminense all the way in the final Club World Cup group game, having learnt some important lessons from their Dortmund loss.
The Brazilians went down 4-3 to the German giants but made a lot of new fans with their performance after battling back from 4-1 down, having initially taken an early lead.
Both Dortmund and Sundowns are on four points from their two games, with Fluminense top of the standings with six points, while Ulsan are bottom of the pile with zero points.
Sundowns will need a win if they are to stand a chance of progressing to the knockout rounds.
Speaking ahead of his side’s clash at the Hard Rock Stadium on Wednesday night, Cardoso called on his charges to be “brave”.
He said in the Citizen: “As you remember in the first press conference, I spoke about how we want to be at the Club World Cup and I said we want to compete.
“It’s exactly what we did against Dortmund and what we also did against Ulsan HD to show that we’re on the pitch to play and we’re not afraid.”
Sundowns had kicked off their tournament with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Korean side Ulsan HD.
“We have to respect every moment of the game and every opponent and their qualities. We know what they have but on the other hand, we should be brave enough to take ourselves to the limit,” the head coach added.
“Sometimes out of defeats there’s nothing you take home but out of that defeat, we can take a lot. We can grow and take confidence and get belief.
“We got respect and I think we got a lot of respect from the world. I heard people that came to tell me the opinion from people at Dortmund.
“I heard people asking for shirts, saying that they want to get memories from this team and it was beautiful to see. It means that we’re on the right path and let’s keep fighting until the end.”