Even success brings with it casualties

After dropping the ball and getting it wrong a couple of times, Mamelodi Sundowns owner and president, Patrice Motsepe has got it right. In fact he actually got it right a good eight years ago – on 12 December 2012, when he hired Pitso Mosimane as coach. This after he had tried so many mentors previously, but to no avail. Some had come with big reputations and were given unlimited budgets to sign players but they just couldn’t get any success.

Mosimane arrived when the club were at the wrong end of the table in the relegation positions in the Absa Premiership. He moved them away from danger and has since then won four Premiership titles and every other local title on offer except for the MTN8.

But most importantly, he brought the club the “star” on the club’s crest which symbolises their continental success.

He is currently the most successful coach in the league. I know he is no saint and there are some who don’t believe in him and say all this success is “bought”. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that he uses Motsepe’s money to destabilise other teams by buying their best players, only to turn them into furniture at Chloorkop.

There is a concern about this, in fact a serious one. Not that he destabilises teams but the habit of buying promising players and parking them. That is what I don’t like. I certainly believe the likes of Oupa Manyisa, Lucky Mohomi and George Lebese could have gone on to become even bigger stars had they not had their careers paused at Sundowns. But then he couldn’t have known that those players would not be able to @SbongsKaDonga adjust or fit into with his system and methods, ending up having to sit in the stands.

He has done more good than bad in any case so it is easy to forgive him for those whose careers he “killed” in the process. Every war has innocent victims anyway. Mosimane has churned out players who have gone on to become stars in bigger leagues and also become the core of Bafana. In fact, you could easily pick a Bafana squad using only former and current Sundowns players and actually have a fair and balanced team.

This week, Motsepe rewarded Mosimane’s work by adding a further four years to his contract which one has to believe comes with a lot of money too, just based on what Motsepe said about paying staff well to ensure quality delivery of work.

In turn, Mosimane promised another “star”. And it is easy to see it happening because he is allowed to bring in his own players who he feels can add value rather then have them forced on him by management who consider budgets before the quality of players.

What Motsepe has done should be a lesson to others that a coach who is successful deserves more time, not the chopping and changing which brings with it a different style of play every season – or in Chippa United’s case perhaps, every quarter.