On the face of it, Mamelodi Sundowns have upgraded their coaching bench by appointing Miguel Cardoso to replace Manqoba Mngithi.
Cardoso is, after all, a championship-winning coach as well as a CAF Champions League finalist from his time at Tunisian giants Esperance. It was under his guidance that the Blood and Gold beat Sundowns in the semi-final of the continent’s premier club competition last season.
In his native Portugal, he led lowly Rio Ave to their best position ever – fifth – in the 2017/18 season, a feat that saw them qualify for the Uefa Europa League.
That though, is all she wrote. A closer inspection of the bald-headed Portuguese’s CV suggests Flemming Berg (Sundowns’ Technical Director) and Hlopi Motsepe (the club chairman) may have just bought a dud.
Cardoso does not have an impressive record as a coach, with his 37.39% win record not the kind that is going to send the rest of the continent quaking in their boots at the prospects of facing the South African champions.
Granted, he did well to help Esperance win the Tunisian league before taking them all the way to the CAF Champions League final. Those are feats not to be sneezed at. However, his time in charge of French Ligue 1’s Nantes, Spain’s Celta Vigo, and AEK Athens in Greece is probably an episode in those clubs’ history best forgotten.
Cardoso lasted less than 10 matches at Nantes, the club deciding to fire him after he’d managed just six points from eight matches. He joined Celta Vigo immediately thereafter but you knew he was onto a hiding to none when he committed a faux pas by referring to his new employers as Deportivo de La Coruna – another Spanish club.
Not surprisingly, he was there for just five months, the club sending him packing as they were just a spot and two points above the relegation zone. It did not get any better in Greece, where he lasted a mere three matches – a third dismissal in under a year.
He was jobless for a year thereafter and returned to his native Portugal for a second spell at Rio Ave, where he failed to save the club from relegation via the play-offs.
As most European coaches do, he headed to Africa and enjoyed better fortunes with Esperance. On the strength of that success, Sundowns brought him to Chloorkop in the hope that he will ‘re-energise’ the South African champions to perform at their utmost best.
Cardoso dismissed suggestion that his lack of trophies meant he is not the right man for the Sundowns job at his unveiling yesterday: “We live in a society and a sport where people judge the CVs by the trophies, but they sometimes forget that in order to win you need to be in a context where you can truly fight to win.
“But also sometimes, you are in a context where winning is not really getting trophies. For example, I have been to four finals of big competitions and we won zero. I am speaking about the Youth League with Shaktar Donetsk; I am speaking about the Europa League with Braga; and I am speaking about the Champions League with Esperance.
“Being in those finals – it’s such a big trophy that when you judge my CV, don’t judge it because we lost but judge it because we won matches to arrive there. I waited one and a half years without work to enter a club where I had the chance to win a trophy.
“And when I entered, I succeeded; I won. I am the champion of Tunisia at the moment. So, when you judge a coach, judge by a lot of things.”
Cardoso went on to elaborate that he had developed players who are now internationals, as well as setting some kind of records without winning trophies, arguing that his success or lack thereof, should not only be assessed via silverware.
“Here (at Sundowns) it is another level and we need to win, and that’s what we're going to do.”
He better get Sundowns winning, starting this weekend against Raja Casablanca in the CAF Champions League, if he is to convince us that he is an upgrade from Mngqithi.