Sundowns spent 20 minutes on field preparing for Pirates reveals coach

Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso said they only spent 20 minutes preparing for Saturday’s resounding win over Orlando Pirates, which puts them on course for an eight successive Betway Premiership title.

He said they had little time to practice for the 4-1 victory at Loftus Versfeld which put Sundowns nine points clear at the top of the table.

“This game with Pirates was prepared in 20 minutes,” he revealed as Sundowns set a new record for the most number of points garnered in the first half of the season as they moved to 42 points from 15 matches.

“We had 20 minutes on the pitch but we didn't run. I just positioned the players. ‘When the ball is here and then when we here or when we win the bal and what we do’. And then video analysis and then team meetings and that's how we prepared because there's no time to train,” Cardoso explained.

“If you make the players train, they will arrive at the games in a poor conditions. So we didn't do any physical exercise. We just position ourselves around the field and showed what we should so in various situations, what we had to do when they play short, when they played long, how we should press them, when we will be in low block, how we should press them.

“There's no way we could exercise,” he added because of Sundowns having played in midweek against SuperSport United.

Cardoso, however, said that the title race was far from finished.

“We’ve collected a wonderful number of points after the first half of the championship, but there's the second half to play. I’ve said before and I’ll keep saying it, that the championship is far from being finished, very far.

“But now each match we play, we can move closer (to the title) more and more. But there's a lot to go,” he warned.