Miguel Cardoso dismisses defensive tag after Esperance triumph

After a goalless stalemate in their second leg tie in Radés on Tuesday evening,

The Brazilians progressed to the semi-finals of the continental club tournament and will face old foes Al Ahly later this month.

The strike by forward Peter Shalulile at Loftus Stadium a week earlier was enough to see them through, but Cardoso shot down the notion he was a defensive coach. 

"I think people in Tunisia developed an idea regarding me as a coach that is not exactly correct – even in the last weeks I heard again people saying that we are defensive, that I'm a coach that has a defensive approach," defended Cardoso.

"And I always told you [media] that is not exactly correct – what we tried to do was play a Champions League quarter-final against a team that is very strong.

"If you want to succeed playing in a team like Esperance, Al Ahly, Al HIlal, Pyramids, AS FAR, whoever the teams are competing, and [Orlando] Pirates, in the quarter-final – to move forward you must be very complete as a team, you can never be naive.

"Adapting to the realities, the qualities that I as a coach have been developing, because maybe in the beginning of my career I thought I would beat everybody the same way, but football taught me very easily that you need to adapt to the contexts.

"You cannot play the same way when you play in Radés against Esperance as when you play in Loftus, so you need to understand what [type of] game you are playing – and even during the game because there are games happening all the time."

READ: Cardoso hints at Sundowns playing style against Esperance