Glory bells ringing
PLAN: MOSIMANE ON BRINK OF DELIVERING CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DREAM Pitso’s team have raised the bar and are ready to make continental honours a reality come Sunday.
I did say that we are having fun. I never expected that it would come this way. Pitso Mosimane Sundowns coach
In his inaugural interview as Mamelodi Sundowns coach back in 2012, Pitso Mosimane made it clear that he joined the Chloorkop-based side because of his desire to win the Champions League.
At the time, it seemed a bit of hallucination, considering that he inherited a Sundowns side that Johan Neeskens had made a mess of.
Fast forward four years, and “Jingles” can almost hear the bells of continental glory. Mosimane looks set to guide Masandawana to their maiden Caf Champions League title. The Brazilians carry a convincing 3-0 lead in the final to the second leg in Egypt, where they will face a wounded Zamalek at the Borg El Arab Stadium in Alexandria on Sunday.
“Everybody has a plan and a vision, and the plan sounds brilliant, sounds intelligent, but it doesn’t mean if you have a plan, the end result will be what you want from the plan. Life is like that, you can plan to do something, and then it backfires,” said Mosimane at Sundowns training yesterday before the side left for Egypt later in the afternoon.
“Last year we planned for the Champions League. It backfired, we lost to TP Mazembe in our second game, but it was because we were rookies. Caf seeds the teams, we were a small team that hadn’t been participating and that is why we met Mazembe earlier.
“We can’t meet Mazembe early on next year. We had to pay our school fees. This is our second year, and to be honest, I did say that we are having fun. I never expected that it would come this way. Maybe in the third year I thought we could maybe get something out of this.
“Even with the league, when I came here, there was six months to save the team from relegation, but the second year we won the league, that is the challenge sometimes – you raise expectations and you put pressure on yourselves by achieving things a little bit earlier ... I would rather have it like that than not.”