Inside Mamelodi Sundowns: South Africa’s superclub, the home of ‘shoeshine and piano’

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Mamelodi Sundowns won their eighth South African Premiership title in a row with a game to spare in May but, before their last league fixture, the mood inside the meeting room at the club’s training centre revealed much was still at stake.

As Portuguese head coach Miguel Cardoso pulled down the blinds and clapped his hands for attention, the players could see a slogan on the wall behind him that reminded them that “discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments”.

The club’s Chloorkop base, just outside Johannesburg, is decorated with motivational messages. Across four days embedded in the Sundowns camp before they compete at the Club World Cup in the United States, it becomes clear they have absorbed into the consciousness of anyone who represents the club, one confident enough to call themselves “The Brazilians”.

This is partly because of their colours but also the expectation to deliver attacking football, a style known across the country as “shoeshine and piano”.

An identity is strong here, yet the team’s yellow shirt also has levelling qualities. It has a badge with a hand that points upwards and proclaims: “The Sky is the Limit” as well as a phrase “Ubuntu-Botho”, which comes from African philosophy and, according to chairman Tlhopie Motsepe, “highlights the importance of respecting the humanity of others and caring for the communities around us”.

Sundowns fans celebrate winning the league last month (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

In basic terms, this creates a “brotherhood” that Motsepe, Cardoso and the players speak about a lot. Cardoso, who worked in Portugal, Ukraine, France, Spain and Greece before arriving in South Africa at the end of 2024, thinks it contributes towards the sort of “elite mentality” he has seen in Europe.

Through May and June, Sundowns’ schedule was packed. Cardoso steered the team to its first CAF Champions League final since 2016 and across subsequent weekends, there were two legs to prepare for against Pyramids from Egypt. The weekend after that, the squad would fly to Florida for the Club World Cup, with group games against Ulsan, Borussia Dortmund and Fluminense to follow.

But first, a home game against Magesi, a challenge Cardoso was not taking lightly. The league trophy was due to be presented in Pretoria after the final whistle but he did not want to frame the match as a party. “We have a f***ing job to do, very important,” he stressed in English at the start of a 30-minute presentation that began with memories from a year ago when, under a different head coach, Rhulani Mokwena, Sundowns missed the opportunity to go the entire campaign unbeaten by losing the final game against Cape Town City in front of their own supporters.

Cardoso had examined photographs on the players’ social networks from that day and none seemed to be celebrating, despite wider achievements. Cardoso explained that he did not want to be responding to questions live on television about the team’s personality because the performance had not matched the season’s high standards. “When the responsibility is less is when the character appears,” he enforced.

Cardoso speaks to his team before the game against Magesi (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

Two Sundowns players were competing to win the Golden Boot for top scorer in the Premiership and Cardoso was wary of distractions because he did not want team-mates thinking about who they were passing to. There was a better chance of everyone getting what they wanted by doing what comes naturally to them. “Football is flow,” he stressed, turning to an overhead projector that beamed images and footage of recent games.

Cardoso has the look of Pep Guardiola but during this trip, it became clear that he shares some of his compatriot Jose Mourinho’s ideas and forcefulness, which he sometimes gets across using the creative messaging of Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta. He wielded a red light pen to demonstrate to his players how they would expose Magesi’s weaknesses but he would also caution against some of the opponent’s strengths.

Sundowns might be the best team in South Africa and one of the wealthiest Confederation of African Football (CAF) clubs but Cardoso knows they can’t simply do what they want all of the time. “Some people call this pragmatic,” Cardoso said later in his office. “I call it more clever.”

Cardoso in his office at Chloorkop (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

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The following evening, Tlhopie Motsepe was back just in time to see his team take the early 2-0 lead against Magesi they never surrendered.

The club’s chairman had been at a wedding in Portugal the day before but wanted to be around for the celebrations, and that meant he could take questions from The Athletic at Pretoria’s Loftus Versfeld Stadium, a brutalist venue primarily used by the Blue Bulls rugby union team, which Motsepe’s billionaire father also part-owns.

Patrice Motsepe made his money in mining before transforming Sundowns’ economic possibilities following his purchase of the club in 2003. After emerging as president of CAF 18 years later, he was still legally able to own Sundowns but had to relinquish his involvement, passing the responsibility onto his son, then aged just 31.

It is fair to say Tlhopie seems comfortable with the role. He wears a suit and T-shirt with trainers. He is passionate and knowledgeable about football, evidenced by small talk where he discusses his interest in Scotland’s Old Firm derby.

Tlhopie Motsepe at Loftus Versfeld Stadium (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

Tlhopie explains his father’s connection with Mamelodi dates back to some of his earliest experiences in business: the Motsepe family had a corner shop, some eateries and a beer hall, which distributed alcohol in the township, just east of Pretoria, during the 1970s.

Patrice Motsepe, however, was born in Soweto, the home of the two most supported clubs in South Africa. At the turn of the 21st century, the names of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates were more famous, but they were not initially more successful than Sundowns since the end of apartheid and then the launch of the South African Premiership in 1996.

Pirates and Chiefs each have four titles, the same number as Sundowns in 2003. Twenty-two years later, Sundowns have accelerated to 15 and their dominance of South African football has stirred much debate. For critics, especially rival fans fed up with losing their best players to a financed competitor, Motsepe’s money has created an uneven sport where the outcome seems inevitable at the end of every season. From a Sundowns perspective, new money has helped drive standards, developing players and coaches — and changing perceptions about what is possible for African clubs when investment is made available.

South Africa’s men’s national team, regularly populated by many Sundowns players, has certainly benefited because they are used to performing with one another — they are among the outside favourites to win the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) that starts in December (they were last champions in 1996) — and if they qualify for next summer’s World Cup in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, as expected, it will be for the first time since South Africa hosted the tournament in 2010.

A Sundowns fan before the Champions League final first leg on June 1 (Sayed Hassan/Getty Images)

Tlhopie says that after becoming chairman, he wanted to “maintain” his father’s vision of turning Sundowns into one of the best clubs in Africa before “sustaining that position”. He also wanted to prove Sundowns could become an institution, “a symbol that can represent something bigger than just football”.

He referenced the townships, where people feel let down or struggle to find relatable inspirational figures or stories. During apartheid, the townships were reserved for non-Whites who lived near or worked in areas that were designated ‘White-only’. When The Athletic visited Mamelodi two days earlier, a greeting came from supporters at a community event organised by the club outside a shopping mall. It seemed like they could have danced for hours and on a Friday night. The main road running through Mamelodi was a continuation of barbecues, shebeens selling alcoholic drinks and tuck shops. In the cold, groups of men and women huddled around fire pits. Kids were everywhere. It was crawling with people having a good time.

Yet warnings come with places like Mamelodi, especially for visitors entering after dark. It has high unemployment, crime and low life expectancy. One of the reasons Sundowns play matches in Pretoria is that stadiums in South Africa have to be owned and maintained by local authorities, and Mamelodi does not have enough money to go around.

Fans celebrate Sundowns’ trophy win (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

Fewer than 10,000 fans watched the team’s trophy-lift but a week later, when Pyramids scored a stoppage-time equaliser to secure a 1-1 draw and take an away goal back to Cairo in the CAF Champions League final, 52,000 pack the terraces above Motsepe. Sundowns will have less support in the U.S. at the Club World Cup, with the club helping to finance and solve the logistical challenges facing travelling supporters.

Motsepe nevertheless sees it as an opportunity first and foremost for the players to show what they’ve got, while acknowledging that the financial benefits from prize money, branding exposure and any potential new partners will only strengthen Sundowns’ position at the top of their domestic league.

African football is often viewed through the success of its national teams and maybe, for the first time, this is the chance for one of its clubs to really express themselves. If that is to happen, Cardoso will need to lift spirits and work his magic because in Cairo, Sundowns ultimately came up short, losing 2-1 on the night and 3-2 on aggregate.

The defeat would prompt more discussion about the team’s approach. Yet as they rolled over Magesi, Cardoso had Motsepe’s full support. After interviewing him for the job in Europe, he realised that Cardoso was a coach who spoke to “the hearts and minds of the players”. Though Sundowns are known as a team that entertains, they have been criticised since 2016 for lacking defensive substance when it has really mattered. Motsepe could see during Cardoso’s earliest months in charge, as he tried to get his message across, that flair was being sacrificed but once the team was settled, it would know how and when to open up again.

Like so many owners and managers across the world, the chairman and head coach of the most successful team in South Africa has spent a lot of time talking about identity. According to Motsepe, the hardest moments of the season were spent “trying to make sure that supporters understood that the results would come and that the style of football that we cherish so much would be preserved.”

When the trophy was lifted, the last player to return to the pitch from the tunnel was Sundowns club captain Themba Zwane.

The 35-year-old midfielder’s presence in their Club World Cup squad seemed unlikely earlier this year after he ruptured his Achilles playing for South Africa in Congo. Zwane is fit again but has a challenge getting back into a team packed with talent, one that has been reinforced in his absence.

(Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

At Chloorkop before the Magesi game, he explains it was his dream as a child to “create history”. He has certainly achieved that, having become Sundowns’ most decorated player, winning nine league titles. Though he performs with a tigerish spirit, he is quietly spoken to the point that he is barely audible.

Zwane grew up a 10-minute drive away from the training ground in Tembisa, a township he described as a “good place but not easy”. Some days, he went without food and this led to four-on-four street games, where children would compete for money. These experiences had a lasting impact. “I’m able to face any situation that I come across,” he insists. “We want to make history, every time, and then we try to make history repeat itself.”

Themba Zwane (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

Zwane arrived at Sundowns because the club decided to focus hard on recruiting the best young players from the townships. One of the coaches involved was Trott Moloto, who has filled almost every role at the club. In the 1980s, he was assistant to head coach Stanley “Screamer” Tshabalala when he returned from Italy with new ideas, having studied methods at Milan, Inter and Juventus.

“Shoeshine and piano” came from a few words that he picked up and the things that he saw. Tshabalala was convinced that he’d heard one of the coaches say “piano”, as well as another word that sounded like “shoeshine”. The coach was trying to tell his players to “calm down”.

For Moloto, he has seen the spirit passed down from Tshabalala in Zwane. “When he gets the ball, he has already thought about his next move,” he explains at Chloorkop. “When I watch Themba, I see shoeshine and piano.”

Look out for parts two and three in our series with Mamelodi Sundowns this week, as well as a special audio documentary.

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; FIFA / Getty, Phil Magakoe / Getty)

This news was originally published on this post .

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