Sundowns claimed a 1-0 victory in the first leg thanks to an excellent free-kick from Aubrey Modiba, but several chances went begging during the match.
The narrow lead means Sundowns will head into the return leg with work still to do despite controlling large periods of the encounter.
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MIGUEL CARDOSO WANTED MORE FOR MAMELODI SUNDOWNS
Cardoso felt his team deserved another goal that could have given them a stronger advantage before the trip away.
“Five I think it’s a bit too much and eventually not fair, but yeah, we should’ve scored one more goal and create a little bit better advantage and have one foot in the front. Anyway, we showed we can compete with this team as we compete with any other team,” Cardoso told SuperSport TV after the match.
The Portuguese coach also stressed that the mindset cannot change despite failing to extend the lead.
“We need to take the energy into the second match of course so that we can fight for the trophy. We should not drop any kind of energy because we didn’t score, the moment of decisions are upfront and we need to look at the second match.
“Be able to close our ears, forget what happens in the stands and play the football we can play whenever in the continent that’s what we need to do.”
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DEFENSIVE DISPLAY DELIGHTS TECHNICAL TEAM
Cardoso was particularly satisfied with how Sundowns managed transitions and limited the danger from AS FAR.
“I think our defensive transition we were in most part of the game ok, we could control the spaces in our defence, it’s just more our offensive transition. It’s not easy to break this team on counter-attack, break-attacks because their full-back attack a lot,” the Sundowns mentor continued.
“So, there were not much in terms of spaces. I think we had to manage the ball and take them inside to the other in order to increase and in that moment find spaces.
“Here and there were not able but we were in the major part of the game. That’s the mentality we need to take in the second match,” Cardoso concluded.
