Sundowns are building up new fan base
MAMELODI SUNDOWNS coach Pitso Mosimane believes that his club’s success will increase their fan base, especially among young supporters.
The Brazilians will lift local football’s elite league trophy on Saturday in Bloemfontein for a record eighth time in the PSL era.
Three of those titles, in the advent of the PSL, came under Mosimane’s watch along with the 2016 Caf Champions League and 2017 Caf Super Cup among a number of trophies Sundowns have won with “Jingles” in charge.
Despite that success and playing good football, Sundowns still fail to consistently pack the Lucas Moripe Stadium and their alternative home ground Loftus.
The positive is all the success makes it easier for them to attract players from countries that aren’t exposed to continental football.
“You must remember that we don’t have the big culture and history of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, where you can say come and play for a big team,” Mosimane said yesterday following Sundowns’ clean sweep at the PSL monthly awards for April that saw him win the Coach of the Month gong and striker Percy Tau taking home the Player of the Month award.
“We have to use results because we are a result-driven team. When I was young, Sundowns wasn’t there, so you had two or three teams that you knew about – hence their popularity. But it will be totally different when you ask seven-year-olds who have been watching football for the last four years. I can guarantee those ones, 70 percent are Sundowns supporters at this point in time because they don’t know any other more successful team.
“They go with what they are seeing every week, us winning. That’s how we followed those other teams, they were winning. I can’t change the older generation. I can’t even change my family members because they saw their teams doing well in the 80s and that’s why they are staying with them. But now this is a different generation. You must be there in front of them.”
Mosimane tried to avoid being dragged into the PSL Coach of the Season debate that has divided opinions. He chose instead to focus on hyping Tau as a deserved candidate for the Footballer of the Year award.
But Mosimane eventually let in and spoke about who his candidate for Coach of the Season is.
“I don’t know what’s the criteria for that award, you probably know it,” Mosimane said.
“I don’t know whether the number of Coach of the Month awards you have won contribute or whether it’s the games you’ve won or it’s a welfare and social responsibility approach (of feeling pity) for the small teams. Or we apply the same criteria that we used when Gavin Hunt won it, with the backup from Bidvest – the biggest company in South Africa.
“Or when Stuart Baxter won it at Kaizer Chiefs, with the biggest club in the country with big sponsors. Or maybe the criteria has changed. I don’t know. It’s just that I fight for myself and when people go against me, and do so indirectly then I come out … I said it in Maritzburg, that my Coach of the Season is Fadlu Davids because you can’t vote for yourself.”