No Way Back For Saleng? ‘We Tried So Much’

Mamelodi Sundowns attacker Monnapule Saleng. Image: Gallo Images

If Miguel Cardoso’s words on Monnapule Saleng are anything to go by, then the player has little chance of making a return to first team action at Mamelodi Sundowns.

The Portuguese coach recently revealed that the former Orlando Pirates is not training with the first team over disciplinary issues which have placed the player’s future at the club in doubt.

Based on what Cardoso said during a press conference held at the MTN headquarters in Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon, Saleng may need to start looking to play his football elsewhere. The coach revealed that they made an effort to integrate the player into the team and make him feel part of the team, but the situation appears to be untenable. The coach spoke at length about the situation with the player, but made it clear that it would be last time he addresses the issue.

“I don’t want to speak too much about that because now Saleng is a club’s issue and not the coach’s issue. It was never a coach issue. He was always a player that we gave a lot of effort. We tried so much, so much, so much…pushing him towards the group, towards the dynamic of the group, towards the behaviours that a professional player has to have, the mental stability a player has to have. We have a lot of understanding of what are the rules and the locker room has rules,” Cardoso told media.

“When a player breaks systematically 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 that we say how can we count on something that we don’t know what he is going to do. Imagine you train the whole week normal and then you put his name on the list and then the day we waiting for him to enter the bus, he doesn’t appear. These things didn’t happen once. It happened twice, three four times, being the last to arrive and the first to go away. It’s difficult to have a process of development of a player. We tried to give him at the beginning of the season to give him a lot of love. Our attitude we had in him after he failed with us was ‘let’s not put him apart Let’s embrace him, let’s give him love and let’s make him feel important’.

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“I don’t know if you remember, but my assistant showed me on the media that there was a moment when I was dancing with him in the middle of the circle, myself trying to make him understand how we wanted him to integrate into the family. But to be part of a family, you’ve got to really want to be in the dynamic of the family. It’s the last time I am going to speak about it because it’s a club issue.”

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