The big boys win the Champions League drama surrounding the fact that they trained at Naturena? RM:

“We want to create a team no one enjoys playing against…” “When was a quadruple achieved in South Africa? It’s very difficult to achieve that.”

Afew weeks remain in the season and, as it appears, Mamelodi Sundowns will cruise to their fifth consecuitle, tive league title showing just how dominant they have been in South Africa in recent times. On the continent, they have also been a difficult outfit to break down, with their latest achievement being qualification to the quarterfinals, where Petro de Luuanda lie in wait. Beating Al Ahly twice in back-to-back CAF Champions League matches was the cherry on top. As things stand, the Tshwane giants are on course for a historic quadruple to cement their place as the greatest team since the PSL’s inception in 1996. In this interview with Soccer Laduma’s Tshepang Mailwane, the club’s co-coach, Rhulani Mokwena, discusses various topics, including the exclusion of Andile Jali and Themba Zwane from the most reBafana cent Bafana squad, Teboho Mokoena’s progress and the appointment of Flemming Berg as Downs’ new sporting director.

Tshepang Mailwane: Coach, before the international break, Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos explained his consistent non-selection of Themba Zwane and Andile Jali despite the duo’s good performances for Mamelodi Sundowns this season. What did you make of those comments?

Rhulani Mokwena:

Well, I am extremely disappointed. I am disappointed in the comments, but it’s very difficult to respond and it’s for us to reach that space where he promised to meet the coaches (in the PSL) and once we meet, we will address some of these unfortunate comments because it’s a bit difficult to speak about them without compromising our integrity. It’s best to express my disappointment in person because we do have the responsibility as the coaches of Themba Zwane and Andile Jali to protect our players. We will not accept, unfortunately, that type of defamatory (comments). I call them ‘defamatory’ because they go beyond the space of football and it’s unfortunate that the national team coach can speak like that, particularly when in football we say what speaks loudest is performances.

TM: Yeah.

RM: Show me players in the last couple of years who have been more consistent than Themba Zwane. Show me a player who has been as consistent as Andile Jali this season and Themba Zwane this season. I am not sure. But I think we will deal with those comments in person when that time comes.

TM: Fair enough. How important is it to have meetings between PSL coaches and the man in charge of the national team?

RM: I wouldn’t know because I have never been coach of the national team. I cannot gauge how important they are. But ours is to focus on Mamelodi Sundowns and to do the best that we can. If there is a way we can assist the national team agenda, we will always do that. That’s why we always train our players to be the best and to improve them. We don’t just improve them for ourselves, but we improve them to make sure that they are the best players in the country. And by being the best players, they should be in the national team because the national team has the responsibility to the nation and not (to) any individual. The national team needs to represent people from many walks of life. When you see what’s happening in some of the biggest nations in the world, you still see Cristiano Ronaldo participating for Portugal. Pepe is still participating for Portugal. I don’t know how much value there is in these meetings, but as I say, we are always available to assist the national agenda and the national team and the national team coach, regardless of who it is because the national team agenda is not about any individual. It’s about the representation of the mentality, the culture, the thinking and the state of South African football. If there is a way we can assist the coach in whatever capacity, we are always prepared to do it for our nation.

TM: Let’s move on to more positive stuff. On your way to qualifying for the CAF Champions League quarterfinals, you beat Al Ahly twice during the group stages. What do those victories say about how far Sundowns have come in continental football?

RM: Where Sundowns is, I think, is where Sundowns has been for a long time. Sundowns has won the Champions League, so by winning the competition, you put yourself in a position to be one of the best teams on the African continent. The consistency shown by the club dictates that if you qualify for the quarterfinals five times in a row, you are then considered one of the big boys in the Champions League. The big boys play quarterfinals, semi-finals and finals. The big boys win the Champions League, and you see that in Europe. But what’s ognition of the fact that Sundowns has beaten Al Ahly 5-0 at home before. What we did at home, to beat them 1-0, was not anything out of the extraordinary. It was an amazing achievement because we’ve got a younger and newer team with players who don’t have that experience, who were not part of the team that won the Champions League and who were not part of the team that’s accumulated so much Champions League experience over the years. But it’s a team that shows a lot of promise and the only thing that it does is to give us motivation to work, and it gives the players confidence in our methodology and way of working. Once you’ve got that, you have a clear understanding that the results are byproducts of the process. We want to create a team no one enjoys playing against and we want vision and objectives of this club. We knew that when we were in Cairo, we had to beat Al Ahly. It’s an extra step towards getting to where we want to be. Last season in the Champions League, we had an incredible run and we only lost to Al Ahly in Cairo and we lost a match (against Belouizdad) once we had qualified from the group stages. We beat TP Mazembe and ended a historic run in Lubumbashi. But with all the positives from last season and all the performances, we still did not win the Champions League. We’ve had good results and iconic results, but they are just that because they do not deliver trophies. What’s important is to keep our feet firmly on the ground, remain humble and to keep working towards meeting the objectives and try to push ourselves to make sure we bring the Champions League home.

TM: What does it say about the team that you were able to stay so focused on the second match against the Egyptian giants during the group

The players do it. The players are the ones who manage their focus. The players are the ones who filter the noise and information. Ours is just to focus on the process and to do the due diligence, which is making sure that the team is best prepared to be able to win the football match. Ours is to make sure that we watch the opposition. For example, for the first game against Al Ahly in Cairo, I watched their last 10 games going all the way to the Super Cup final against Raja (Casablanca). I watched all of their games of the Champions League and the games of the Club World Cup and their recent games of the league. That’s how important it was not to miss the smallest of details. Then you try to get all that information and try players can remember and then you can work in that space. At the end, that’s what players want. They want information on how we can win football games.

TM: There was a lot that coach Pitso Mosimane had to say about the Brazilians before and after the game. Now that he is on the other side, is your relationship with him still the same as when he left?

RM:

Yeah, and it will always be the same. There’s a huge mutual appreciation. Pitso is the coach who gave me my opportunity at Sundowns when I was in the academy. For me, he is one of the best on the African continent, for sure. But also, he is a coach I have huge admiration and respect for. What gravitates that is a sense of gratitude. There’s

deeper-rooted sense of gratitude and I think for both sides when I say there is a huge level of appreciation and respect. When you look at where he is, I can’t compete with coach Pitso. It’s not possible. He is not in my league. He is in a higher league. His success is one that inspires me and the way he has gone about it is something to marvel at.

TM: How much do you know about your opponents in the quarterfinals, Petro de Luanda?

RM:

From a logistical perspective, I think it’s a good draw because we could have gone to North Africa. But going to Angola allows us to still have enough days. We can regenerate the body as soon as we get there because we travel only for three hours. From a football perspective, we accept the draw and we look at it from a positive perspective because we could have played any of the big teams. For the last three seasons, of course this is the first time in those three years that they have qualified for the opposition because Sundowns played against Petro before in the group stages of the Champions League. Sundowns won at home and drew 2-2 away. They are a team we respect a lot. They are strong offensively and although they conceded eight (in the group stage), five of them were against Wydad (Casablanca). They are not really easy to break down. They have some very good players.

TM: Let’s focus a bit more on club matters. Did you as coaches have a say in the appointment of the new sporting

ming Berg? RM:

We support what the club decides. We are members of this institution and we support the direction the club decides to take. We knew about it. We were engaged in the conversations and respected because of the position we carry. It is what it is and the club is in a situation whereweareable to give the best that we can and they give us the conditions to be able to give the team the right sort of profile and the right sort of perform

TM: Why would a club like Sundowns need a sporting director? RM: A sporting director is a position that is important from a global perspective, throughout the clubs in international football. You go into that space and you understand that to sustain success, you need longevity and conformity, and you need stability. To have that, at times, you need a single figure that is able to align all departments and all systems and infrastructures of football clubs. Sundowns is an ambitious club that wants to get itself into a space where we can win for many years. That requires the position of someone who knows the space we are in and who knows where we want to go. It’s forward-thinking from the club and a reflection of the ambition that the club has. Flemming Berg is open and honest. He shows willingness to not just lead us, but he is showing willingness to show us and teach us and to assist us in trying to fulfil the objectives of this project. We are excited as a coaching staff to have him as a bouncing board and as a resource.

TM: What do you make of the progress Teboho Mokoena has made since joining the club in January? RM: Teboho is a very intelligent young man. We knew that when we brought him in. He’s got great quality that fits the way we want to play and we believe his quality can assist the game that we play and we could still even develop that game by adding a lot more new variations within our tactical schemes and our tactical culture. But we also know that we’ve got a lot of work to try to improve the player. Wherever I’ve gone, I have always given myself that clear mandate to try to work as best as I can to improve the players. At (Orlando) Pirates, we could already see the work that we did with improving the players and, at Sundowns, we can already see the work we are doing in terms of improving the players. That is what brings us a lot of joy, to see players like Teboho, (Khuliso) Mudau, Lyle (Lakay) getting better. We have players like Brian Onyango getting better, AJ (Jali), Themba Zwane and Peter Shalulile getting better. At Pirates, we turned a lot of the players, like Vincent Pule, (Thembinkosi) Lorch, Ben Motshwari, Gabadinho Mhango and Tshego (Tshegofatso) Mabasa… these are the players we assisted greatly in terms of improving their performances, as well as their pedigree and profile in the South African game. The work of any coach is to challenge players and improve them.

TM: SuperSport United CEO Stan Matthews recently told Soccer Laduma that he would like to sign Promise Mkhuma. Would that be a good move for the player, especially when you look at how Sifiso Ngobeni is now getting some game-time at Matsatsantsa?

RM: Well, you never know. There are a lot of variables that go towards development. It’s not only about getting game-time. There are players that would benefit greatly from not playing as much but spending a lot more time on the training pitch, with even betfrom them. Sometimes that’s the best thing. Individuals are different, so you never know. But the reality is that young players need to play to get better, especially offensive players. They improve by being on the pitch. But, in the end, it’s not a blanket approach. You need an approach that’s tailor-made for the individual, based on the individual needs and what type of benefit you could get from the environment. The player has got to feel comfortable because if the player is not comfortable with the move, you create a bit of resistance and then that resistance leads to an element of stagnation or regress in regard to fulfilling his potential. It’s not a simple yes or no, but in an ideal world, the younger players should go on loan if they cannot be absorbed by the system. It’s not always easy at Sundowns because the pressure is extremely big. When you play as an offensive player, one of the things you have to do is to help the team win football matches, and that is pressure. That’s not the easiest thing for a young player to carry at a big club.

TM: Where is his headspace at, seeing he has not played a single game this season?

RM:

He is doing well. He has the support of the club and the coaches. We’ve got a strong and vast technical team, with a lot of different skill-sets. Promise gets a lot of support from us the coaches and from his teammates because we are all in agreement that Promise is a talented youngster and he is a player who we definitely believe is one for the future for Mamelodi Sundowns. When you look at a lot of the younger players we have sent out on loan, Promise is one of the few that remained behind because we felt that if he went out on loan, he needed the right environment, and if not, the best thing was for him to stay and to receive our type of training and to be acclimatized to our type of playing and to give him all the necessary support to be able to reach his full potential. Of course, in certain moments, people will have questions and doubts about his capacity and that’s only normal, but ours is to give him as much support as we can. There is a feeling at Mamelodi Sundowns that Promise is the next flagbearer for the club and he will follow in the footsteps of players like (the late Motjeka) Madisha and Percy Tau.

TM: Before we let you go, do you think a quadruple is possible? You’ve won the MTN8 and are still in the running to clinch the league title, CAF Champions League and Nedbank Cup.

RM:

Well, when was a quadruple achieved in South Africa? It’s very difficult to achieve that and we understand that it’s very difficult to achieve the quadruple. And because it’s a difficult feat, it does not mean it scares us. It does not mean we back off from dreaming about it. But it’s a dream and it’s not an obsession. Our mission is to continue to win more football matches and that is highly possible. But we know that to win anything, particularly now until the end of the season where we are reaching the business end and playing games of consequence week in and out, it’s difficult. But to think about the quadruple and to be obsessed could be more detrimental rather than to assist us. We look at every single game, game by game, and we understand that to achieve what we want to achieve, we’ve got to win a lot more football games. And that becomes our immediate focus.

“Flemming Berg is open and honest. He shows willingness to not just lead us, but…”

TM: At least you are on the right track to achieving that, and we wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much for your time, Rhulani, and good luck against Petro this weekend.