PITSO AT ‘SCHOOL’ WITH AFRICA’S BEST
SUNDOWNS COACH SAYS HE IS HONOURED TO BE IN SUCH COMPANY
PITSO Mosimane cut a regal figure at the
Loftus Versfeld auditorium on Sunday night, sipping a cup of coffee that must have gone down well after he guided Sundowns to their third successive appearance in the group stage of the Caf Champions League.
This achievement is another feather in Mosimane’s cap. The 53-year-old already boasts being the only SA coach to win the Champions League which led to him being named Coach of the Year at the Caf awards last year. Jingles’ success in the continent has seen him meet the continent’s finest on the pitch and in class after he was invited to Caf’s inaugural Pro Licence Course that was held in Morocco last week.
The course featured local Moroccan coaches and four special guests who came at the invitation of Caf president Ahmad Ahmad.
Those guests were three-time Africa Cup of Nations winner with Egypt – Hassan Shehata, 2016 African Nations Championship winner with the DRC – Florent Ibenge, Aliou Cisse who will lead Senegal in the World Cup in Russia and Mosimane. The course has eight modules and will be held during Fifa breaks.
“The difficult thing is that the course is in French,” Mosimane said. “You’ve got to imagine me in that class with everything in French.
“But because Kalusha (Bwalya) is the chairman of the portfolio together with Anthony Baffoe, they helped me and got me an interpreter. But it’s not the same. So basically in the class I don’t take part. But I have to survive. I went to Greece and I speak the language now. I will survive. It’s a big honour and a privilege to be recognised in such a space.”
Mosimane continued, “I never thought that I would be recognised outside the country. But I get respect there. It’s unbelievable. The North Africans now know about Sundowns. It’s humbling because who am I to be among those three coaches? I need to do better.
“But I have the Champions League, the Caf Coach of the Year award and I went to the Fifa Club World Cup (so I am not completely out of place). Back home we still have a long way to go to understand African football. Out there, they treat us like Kings.”
The Brazilians went from Kings of Africa in 2016 to paupers the following year as they were knocked out in the quarter-finals by eventual winners Wydad Casablanca of Morocco. Sundowns are driven to make up for that disappointment by going all the way in this campaign. Tomorrow, after a draw in Cairo, they will know who they will face in the group stage.
If it was up to Mosimane they would avoid DRC giants TP Mazembe. But as Sundowns’ stature in the continent continues to grow, there are some teams who are also hoping that they don’t face the
Brazilians this early in the competition.
Mosimane understands that reaching the group stage for three successive years is no easy feat, but he has his sights on bigger targets than that.
“We have no excuses where we are at Sundowns. It’s important that we play Champions League and we go to the group stage … It’s a mission and vision of the club. The club has to go to the Champions League irrespective of what is happening locally. Yes that puts us under pressure because you have to play more games and a lot of travelling.
“It’s not easy.
“You just have to look at the teams in the Champions League, only a handful of teams that went far last year and the year before are at the top of their league at home at this point in time.
It’s only us, Esperance and Al-Ahly. Wydad, who won the Champions League, are struggling.
“It’s a handful of teams who for three years in a row are at the top of their domestic league and are going far in the Champions League.” columnist now thinks it very unsafe to assume any hard and fast position regarding the congress until it actually happens. Or does not.
Up until yesterday Safa was issuing seemingly defiant statements which said the congress will happen. At the same time the media closer to the action in Gauteng were saying Ace Ngcobo, who first said he will stand against the reigning Safa president Danny Jordaan and then went back on his word, were saying that Ngcobo and two other regions in kwaZulu-Natal, might after all, still go to court this week to stop the congress.
Ngcobo’s beef, and seemingly also that of the alleged two regions, is about Safa nominating its own elective committee to steer the election process instead of that committee being elected by all the members of the organisation. I hope this is not confusing you.
If we step back yet a little to what happened earlier it might help clear the fog.
Earlier this month Ngcobo was confirmed as the only other candidate apart from Jordaan who will contest for the presidency of Safa. As the process unfolded Ngcobo“blew the whistle” on an alleged internal irregularity regarding the very same elections.
That alleged irregularity was the absence of an elections committee made up of independently minded members who will steer the election process. Safa countered that by insisting they have the mandate from their general members to go ahead with the elections.
The upshot was that Fifa, the world controlling body, sent in a Cosafa head man to talk to the parties. By the weekend the Fifa-Caf-Cosafa mediator said everything was hunky-dory.
Jordaan and Ngcobo posed for pictures as they shook hands on a “deal”.