Mamelodi Sundowns and their coach, Miguel Cardoso, have the same illness, since the team from Chloorkop, and the coach from Portugal, have turned away from the door of the Caf Champions League title many times separately in previous seasons.
Sundowns secured a place in the semi-finals of the Champions League despite being defeated by Stade Malien of Mali 2-0 in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final on Sunday in Bamako.
Sundowns ended up winning 3-2 when the results of both legs were calculated, since the Brazilians won the first leg 3-0.
Although that is the case, Cardoso told me about how they progressed to the next stage.
“It’s nice to move on to the next round, but it’s sad that this happened without being able to breathe because of suffocation,” said Cardoso to the media.
“I don’t know what happened but we didn’t play the way we planned, especially in the first half. We tried in the second but when the red card (Aubrey Modiba) came out, everything we had started and tried to get a goal that would have freed us.
“We have won but we have to fight for the next stage because the teams we are about to face will not give us a chance to wake up if they find us sleeping like what happened in Mali.”
In the semi-finals, Sundowns will face Esperance from Tunisia who beat Al Ahly from Egypt 4-2.
It will be the fourth season in a row that Sundowns play in the semi-finals of the Champions League starting from the 2022/2023 season.
In all these seasons, Sundowns, who were beaten by Egypt’s Pyramids FC in the final last season, have never won the title. It ended in 2016, while being coached by Pitso Mosimane.
The illness is the same for Cardoso who took Sundowns out of the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2023/2024.
Although Cardoso, who has worked in France, Portugal and Greece, led Sundowns that season, he failed to win the title, losing to Al Ahly from Egypt in the final.
Last season, Cardoso also reached the finals with Sundowns but he also knelt in the finals against Pyramids FC in Egypt.