Sundowns now in better place, says sporting director

After parting ways with two coaches in the space of six months, Mamelodi Sundowns sporting director Flemming Berg insists he doesn't consider their project a failure as he believes they're in a better place.

On Tuesday, Sundowns announced Miguel Cardoso as the new coach to replace Manqoba Mngqithi, who was fired following a not-so-convincing start to the season.

Mngqithi was let go alongside his technical team members Romain Folz and Wendell Robinson, while Rulani Mokwena was fired just before the preseason.

Despite making changes in the technical team for the second time, however, Berg insisted their project was not a failure. “I don't see it like that because we are, in my humble opinion, in a much better place now than we were five months ago. I don't consider the past few months and the journey that we have had as a failure at all,” he said.

“And when it comes to responsibilities in this club, it is a collective effort. We bring a lot of different knowledge, opinions and recommendations to the table. And the general decisions of this magnitude are taken by the board. That's what the club does, and I know there have been talks about me doing this and doing that.

“But it doesn't work like that in this club. The club is much better than that, so I take all the responsibilities that I can, but the most important thing for me to say is that I would not buy the narrative of failure ... not at all, as it was said. The investments have to happen before they start going down. I will give a lot of credit to the coaching team that was here before because we're are in a significantly better place, I'm sure about that.”

Berg, who was criticised by many when Sundowns fired Mokwena, said Cardoso's mandate was to win. “The mandate for any head coach of Sundowns is very clear, it's to win every competition we participate in,” he said. 

“If that's the possibility for the [Fifa] Club World Cup, I will let other people make that valuation but, in general, that's the mandate for all head coaches at the club —  and for coach Miguel.”

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