Not public pressure that saw Cardoso field Zwane, Sundowns coach says

It was not pressure from the media and public that prompted Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso to start Themba Zwane in their Club World Cup victory, but an excellent preparation from the player showed he was ready, the coach said.

Iqraam Rayners’ 36th-minute goal at Inter&Co Stadium in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday (early hours on Wednesday SA time) earned Downs a 1-0 win against the South Korean champions to top Group F after Borussia Dortmund and Fluminense drew the earlier match.

Cardoso took a lot of flak for omitting Zwane — his club and Bafana Bafana’s best creative player of the last decade — in both legs of last month’s 3-2 aggregate Caf Champions League final defeat against Pyramids FC. Zwane had made a return from injury with some substitutes’ appearances, including in the semifinal win against Al Ahly.

The 35-year-old took the field as a starter against Ulsan HD, where Downs achieved their first Club World Cup win in their second participation in the tournament and the first for an African club in the new, expanded 32-team format in the US.

“Regarding Themba, there’s no [influence] from the past. The pressure on me works from inside the club and is with my board and my players. That’s the pressure a coach will have when he settles in a career like me,” Cardoso said.

“What happened is Themba made a hell of a two weeks’ preparation and that is the respect we need to have.

“People spoke a lot about that [Zwane’s omission against Pyramids]. It seems people didn’t understand Themba comes [from injury] on a process of growth since the moment he re-entered the team and trained fully. And it’s important to give him the right opportunity so he can perform.

“Today was the right opportunity to play so I had no problems putting him in even with the risk of letting people think I was putting him in because of pressure. No, it’s not.

“Because I have such respect for my players, we play fair, we have trust and there are a lot of factors in our locker room that go beyond the question that was raised in the press.

“Mostly it was clear it [the criticism] was to provoke someone, which I know [who it is].

“But for sure it didn’t affect our locker room. We have strong values, we trust each other and the management trusts me and we will continue moving forward until the end.”

Downs had their best possible start to their tough group campaign. They have tough matches to come though, meeting Borussia at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati on Saturday (6pm SA time) and Brazilian outfit Fluminense at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on June 25 (9pm).