Pitso Mosimane’s success in north Africa is a feat to celebrate

His desire to become a better coach led him to study the ways of the other successful coaches – the bookshelf at his house teems with biographies of the revered managers of the game from the world over

SOME of the Al Ahly legends say Pitso Mosimane has lost the dressing room and that he has done well to leave notwithstanding, but you can bet that Jingles will be revered wherever he gets to coach next.

Granted, his premature departure from the Egyptian giants may have tainted his reputation a tad bit, the failure to complete his contract is sure to be seen by some as an inability to handle the pressure that comes with coaching the continent’s most successful club.

But, unlike most of his predecessors, Jingles has not been fired from the African Club of the Century, and that alone speaks volumes. The defeat in the CAF Champions League final by Morocco’s Wydad Casablanca may have been his final match at Al Ahly, but he still enjoys the support of club president Mahmoud El-Khatib, aka captain Bibo.

Mosimane could well have stayed on to try to win the league championship that he so craved – the former Bafana Bafana coach was not crowned domestic champion in Egypt despite his leading the Red Devils to winning their ninth and 10th Champions League titles.

It is a failure he will struggle to get over even though he won five trophies with Al Ahly in his 20 months there.

But that should not be allowed to take away from the amazing job Mosimane did at Al Ahly.

In a world where the colour of your skin often has a bearing on your destiny, Jingles succeeding in North Africa is a feat that sub-Saharan Africa should celebrate.

Only one coach, the legendary Manuel Jose, had hitherto led a club to three successive CAF Champions League finals and for Mosimane to match that was proof of his coaching prowess.

Sure, he didn’t complete the hattrick of titles following the defeat by Wydad. But to win the Champions League twice and add two Super Cups plus the Egyptian League titles to the equation is no small achievement.

That remarkable feat has no doubt seen to it that Mosimane – the first non-Egyptian African to coach Al Ahly – is now a continental coaching legend who will be able to pick and choose which club he joins.

Speculation is rife that he may go to Qatar to take charge of Al Sadd – the club he turned out for in the final days of his playing career. The Qataris are reportedly keen to have a coach of his calibre in their country so they can use him as a marketing tool of sorts in the build up to the FIFA World Cup they will be hosting at the end of the year.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen, for there is also talk of a possibility of him returning home to take over at Orlando Pirates.

Those close to him will know, though, that Mosimane nurses much bigger ambitions. And while he has recently said that he will not rule out a return to South Africa if “the project is right”, the fact that Pirates will not be playing continental football next season may be a turn-off.

He has already proven himself in Africa, his six continental titles (three CAF Champions League and three CAF Super Cups) making him the most successful African club coach.

He is second only to Portugal’s Manuel Jose and the competitive coach in him will no doubt be disappointed that he has failed to win three successive CAF Champions League titles, a feat that would have earned him continental football immortality.

But you can bet he is itching for a new challenge.

It is for that reason that he has spoken of his desire to win the Asian Champions League (AFC Champions League) and he believes that the best place to achieve that objective is Saudi Arabia. A job at four-time champions Al-Hilal or current league leaders Al-Ittihad who have won it twice will probably tickle his fancy.

Al Sadd, his former club, have also won the competition twice and may well see him as the man to see them rule the continent after an 11-year drought just as he helped Al Ahly reclaim their continental supremacy.

Mosimane returned to South Africa last weekend so he and his manager wife Moira Tlhagale could plot the next move for the 57-year-old coach.

It shouldn’t be a hard sell, with Tlhagale’s MT Sports Marketing and Management agency having already said that they’ve been inundated with requests from clubs both here at home and internationally.

That Mosimane is in demand is by no chance, for the man has worked hard to become the coaching giant he now is.

From the time when he took over at SuperSport United following the departure of then coach Bruce Grobbelaar whom he had assisted, Mosimane has always had the ambition of becoming a top African coach.

I have vivid memories of an interview we did at the pay-channel owned club’s offices where he shared his dreams.

“My goal is to coach in Africa, even if it means starting small by coaching maybe in Swaziland,” he had said, way before he had even won his first trophy.

But unlike many coaches, he didn’t just dream – he worked hard at making the dream a reality, Pitso pushing his bosses at SuperSport to ensure they allowed him to compete in continental competitions when many local clubs saw CAF club tournaments as being expensive and detrimental to domestic ambitions.

PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza loves to tell the story of how Mosimane paid his own way to travel the continent to watch club football matches.

Unlike most local coaches who are usually at golf courses when their clubs are not playing, Mosimane could always be seen at stadiums the country over – spying on future opposition or watching lower league teams in search of new talent.

It was not surprising that he ended up becoming assistant coach at Bafana where he deputised for the late Ted Dumitru and later Brazilians Joel Natalino Santana and Carlos Alberto Parreira before he was elevated to the senior coaching post.

That his tenure as Bafana coach ended sourly – with him being fired during a training camp – should be common knowledge by now. But it was a case of the South African Football Association (Safa) setting Mosimane on fire as he went on to achieve greatness with Mamelodi Sundowns.

The success at Sundowns was not achieved just because he had the millions of Patrice Motsepe to back him up, though he admits that financial strength helped. But Mosimane won the record number of trophies he did with the Brazilians because he worked bloody hard at ensuring he was successful, alright.

His obsession with preparation is legendary, players who have worked with him all telling stories of how they knew better than to come to a team session without having watched and analysed videos of either themselves or the opposition.

Members of his technical team at Sundowns have shared tales of how they would get late night calls from Mosimane who would have spotted something from a video he’d been watching and felt he could not wait until the next training session to discuss it.

Once during an interview at his house, he showed me no less than three DVD decoders which were filled with recordings of matches from all over the continent, Mosimane always keen to know about opponents – including those lowly teams from the likes of Madagascar and Botswana that often made for preliminary opposition.

His desire to become a better coach was such that he studied the ways of the other successful coaches – the bookshelf at his house teeming with biographies of the revered managers of the game from the world over.

And his studies are not limited to just football. Mosimane is a big basketball fan, and admits to having learnt a lot from the great American coaches who have enjoyed success in the NBA.

The legendary Phil Jackson is someone he really admires, so much so that Mosimane has two copies of the former LA Lakers and New York Red Bulls coach’s Eleven Rings memoir – one of which he gifted me after our interview.

Such is his ambition and drive toward success that he has managed to get acquainted with the likes of former Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger from whom he admits to have learnt a lot.

Sure, he sometimes comes across as name-dropping when he mentions the likes of Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel.

But those are the coaches he identifies himself with – Mosimane dreaming way bigger than just being a top coach on the continent.