Miguel Cardoso delves deep into Saleng issues at Sundowns

Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso has delved deep into the issues surrounding troubled winger Monnapule Saleng, who has been frozen out of the team.

The 28-year-old attacker was omitted from the squad that went to Austria for the pre-season camp, raising eyebrows, and is yet to make the matchday squad in the 2026/27 campaign.

Having revealed that Saleng is training separately from the team earlier this month, Cardoso says the player's woes at Chloorkop are now out of his jurisdiction, leaving the matter to the club's hierarchy.

“I don't want to speak too much about that because now Saleng is a club's issue, not a coach's issue, he was never a coach's issue,” said the Downs mentor when pressed about Saleng's situation.

"He was always a player we gave a lot of effort, we tried so much to push him towards the group, towards the dynamic of the group, towards the behaviours a professional player has to have, the mental stability that a player has to have.

"Inside the group we are very disciplined, we have no issues, we have a lot of understanding about what are the rules and the locker room has rules from the players that established a way to be, a way to exist, a way to relate.

"And when a player breaks systematically these kinds of things towards the teammates, towards the coaches, towards the club, we don't know what we can count on. So, there's a moment that we say how can we count on something we don't know what it's going to do.

The Portuguese tactician bemoaned the lack of interest displayed by the former Orlando Pirates talisman, dropping a bombshell that Saleng frequently didn't show up during matchdays despite being in the squad.

“Imagine you train normal all the week and you put his name on the list and the day that we are waiting for him to enter the bus he just literally doesn't appear,” Cardoso added.

"So, these things didn't happen once, it happened twice, three, or four times - being the last to arrive, the first to go away. It's difficult to have a process of development of a player.

"And I think you highlighted it in the media that we tried in the beginning of the season to give him a lot of love. So, our attitude regarding him after he failed us was let's not tear him apart, let's embrace him, let's try to give him stability, let's give him love, let's make him feel important.

"My assistant showed me that on the media there was a moment I was dancing with him in the middle of the circle of players, trying to exactly make him understand how we wanted him to integrate in the family, but to be part of a family you also need to really want to be in the dynamics of the family.

"And it's the last time I'm going to speak about it because it's a club's issue and no more a coach's question.

Whether Saleng will be reinstated in the star-studded Sundowns team remains to be seen, with the player having become a shadow of his former self since his alleged dispute with Pirates.

Hlayisani Magoro

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Football journalist from South Africa covering African football news, exclusive stories and key events while sharing insights with passionate fans of the game.

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