Pitso a match away from making history
Coach could become first to take hat-trick of CAF Champions League titles
Al Ahly coach Pitso Mosimane is on the brink of making CAF Champions League history after he guided the club to their third successive final.
The Red Devils will meet Wydad Casablanca in the final in Morocco on May 30 after their 6-2 aggregate win over ES Setif on Saturday, looking to become the first team to win three successive titles.
Mosimane equalled the impressive feat of legendary coach Manuel Jose, who also reached three successive finals with the Red Devils from 2005 to 2007, the first coach to do it.
He joined an elite group of just five coaches in the competition’s 57-year history to have won the trophy for two years running.
No coach in the history of the Champions League has ever achieved what Mosimane is on the brink of achieving with the Red Devils.
However, the final has been overshadowed by controversy after CAF handed Morocco the rights to host the final, which will be a major advantage for Wydad.
And Mosimane has already shown his disappointment to CAF as he feels this could deny him his fourth title after already lifting it with Mamelodi Sundowns and twice with the Red Devils.
Record 10-time champions Ahly want the match staged at a neutral venue and have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland in the hope of overturning the CAF decision.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Célestin Tambwe Laye won with his country’s TP Mazembe in 1967 and 1968 and Argentinian Oscar Fullone with Ivory Coast’s Asec Abidjan in 1998 and Morocco’s Raja Casablanca in 1999.
Jose won the Champions League with Ahly in 2005 and 2006 and Tunisian Moïne Chaâbani won with his country’s Espérance Tunis in 2018 and 2018-19.