Saleng’s future is now a Mamelodi Sundowns club matter, says Cardoso

Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso says the situation involving Monnapule Saleng is no longer a coaching issue and must now be handled by the club, after a series of disciplinary problems involving the player.

Cardoso confirmed earlier this month that Saleng had been removed from training with the senior squad. The decision followed several incidents, including the player’s failure to attend the second leg of the CAF Champions League final and his absence from the club’s pre-season tour of Austria.

The coach was asked on Thursday whether Saleng could still return to the first team before Sundowns’ MTN8 semi-final against Lamontville Golden Arrows. In response, Cardoso explained the repeated attempts made to reintegrate the player, but made clear that he no longer considered Saleng’s situation part of his responsibilities as coach.

“I don’t want to speak too much about that because at the moment Saleng is a club-issue, not a coach’s issue,” he stated on Thursday when asked whether the player had a chance to work his way back into the team.

“It was never a coach issue. He was always a player we gave a lot, a lot, a lot of effort. We tried to push him so much toward the group, toward the dynamic of the group, towards the behaviours that a professional player has to have, the mental stability that a professional player has to have.

“But inside the group we have no issues, we have a lot of understanding about what are the rules and our locker room has rules, the players establish those, and relate, and when a player systematically breaks these kind of things towards the teammates, towards the coaches, towards the club, we don’t know what we can count on.

“So there is a moment where we say how can we count on something, what is he gonna do?

“Imagine you train all of the week normal and then you put his name on a list, and the day we are waiting for him in the bus he just doesn’t appear.

“So these things did not happen once, did not happen twice, three, four times… being the last to arrive, the first to go away. It’s difficult to have a process of a development of a player, and I think you highlighted everything in the media that we tried in the beginning of the season to give him a lot of love, a lot of…

Cardoso said Sundowns initially chose not to isolate Saleng after he had let the team down. Instead, the club’s coaching staff attempted to support him and restore his confidence, while encouraging him to follow the standards expected within the squad.

“So our idea with him after he failed us, let’s not put him apart, let’s embrace him, let’s try to give him stability, let’s give him stability, let’s make him feel important – I don’t know if you remember, but my assistant showed me there was a moment that I was dancing with him in the middle of the circle myself – trying to make him exactly understand how we wanted to integrate him in the family.

“But to be part of the family, you also need to want to be in the dynamic of the family. And it’s now the club’s time to speak about because it’s a club-issue and no more a coach’s questions.”

The Portuguese coach said Saleng’s repeated conduct had made it difficult to rely on him as part of the team’s development process. He also stressed that the squad understood its internal rules, which were established and maintained by the players themselves.

For now, any decision on Saleng’s future at Mamelodi Sundowns rests with the club. Cardoso’s comments indicate that the coach does not regard a return to first-team training as an issue for him to address ahead of the MTN8 semi-final.