As much as Mamelodi Sundowns’ progression to the CAF Champions League final was via the backdoor, getting this close to continental glory is no fluke for Pitso Mosimane. This is something Jingles has been painstakingly working on for ages.
And it didn’t just start at the Brazillians.
Way back when he was coaching SuperSport United, Mosimane dared to dream bigger than most local coaches. Sure, he wanted to win the domestic championship but he also wanted to do well on the continent. And when most of the PSL clubs saw continental competition as a distraction, Mosimane took his runners-up Matsatsantsa into rough “Africa”.
“I’d love to one day coach an African team Jakes,” he told me “And it doesn’t have to be a big country. And I want to win the champions league.”
Jingles coached Bafana Bafana, and now he is just two matches from achieving the second goal.
Fluke some would say, Sundowns’ progression to this stage having come after they were brought back into the competition following the elimination of AS Vita Club.
But what should not be forgotten is that Mosimane first got the Brazilians to qualify for the tournament as South African champions. And that they have used this second chance as well as they have is because of the enormous effort he has put in.
While many of us often dream big, very few go out to make the dreams a reality. Jingles did that and more. In a country where most coaches work no less than six hours a day (two training sessions) and spent most of their time at the golf course or hanging out at the malls, Mosimane is one of the few true professionals who work 24/7.
His commitment to achieving continental success borders on the obsessive, Pitso having traversed the length and breadth of the continent to gather information on potential opposition. Irvin Khoza loves to tell the story of how Mosimane once hitch-hiked from east Africa to north Africa just to watch matches.
The preliminary rounds of continental football are generally disregarded by many, but not Mosimane. At his house, he has no less than three PVR decoders all of them full of matches from the early stages of CAF competitions.
Wouldn’t it be grand if all that effort were to be rewarded with success over Zamalek?
@extrastrongsa
The Star