Mamelodi Sundowns' Miguel Cardoso shares his insight on what makes South African players tick and how development can be made to be world class

Miguel Cardoso as given his take on what he think it can take for South African players to make it abroad and also the general standard of the country’s football.

Cardoso highlighted local players are usually late bloomers yet they have the talent and qualities to make it in the world’s best leagues.

“South Africa has talents – everybody knows. The importance is obviously how to bring the talents abroad,” Cardoso said after his Mamelodi Sundowns side beat Chippa United 4-1 in a Betway Premiership match on Friday night.

“We also know the basis of the football structure is not exactly like Europe, the clubs look for players very young, because they thinking of the business of reselling them, even the biggest teams, so youth is quite important.”

“In South Africa we know the talents appear a little but later than usual in Europe, so some players get out of target for the biggest teams and another thing that needs to be opened is corridors of business, association with the biggest agents abroad, because South Africa has players that can go abroad, no doubt, there’s players that can be exported,” he said.

“To what level? I don’t know but what I know is, many Brazilian players for example, go to Portugal and don’t always enter the biggest teams, they go for a second tier of team and then they have one or two years of experience, show the level and then do the job for the biggest clubs.”