Downs begin taming Africa with a bang
Having won all there’s to win in the PSL, Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane’s next quest seems to be within reach.
|||Having won all there’s to win in the PSL, Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane’s next quest seems to be within reach.
There’s no medal that Mosimane, three times PSL coach of the Season, has not won in the domestic league. Mosimane hankers for the CAF Champions League trophy, though - it is the only piece of metal missing from the astute coach’s cabinet.
After guiding his side to a 2-1 triumph over Enyimba FC on Wednesday night, Mosimane is potentially 630 minutes away from the trophy he has been gunning for, for years.
Mosimane’s men are on top of the CAF Champions League Group B with three points while Zamalek are second with the same number of points. Enyimba are at the bottom following two losses. Mosimane says the mission is to keep the Nigerians at the bottom in order to advance to the semi-finals.
“At this point in time you are happy to be out from the bottom of the log,” said Mosimane.
“I think the Egyptians are also happy with the result because we have to team up against Enyimba. It’s two teams that can go through. We have to keep Enyimba there. We should be happy.
“I think the match when we play Zamalek here, will decide who tops the group. We must avoid the big boys. It’s consistency on the pitch with all the Champions League games. We have scored two goals here in all games and we have won them all. That’s the spirit.”
Though Sundowns won 2-1, Mosimane was not entirely happy with how his men played in a match that was physical.
“We played well in patches. I am not very happy with the play. It was not really convincing,” said the former Bafana Bafana coach.
“The first goal, we got a bit of scrappy goal but who cares. It’s the Champions League. The second goal was obvious from a corner situation. We need to keep the clean sheet here. I would say there has been improvement in our game. We have never won a game outside but we won against ES Setif. It’s not an easy one. We went there and performed better.”
Mosimane has had a daunting task of getting his men to play in the midst of the off-season. A number of Sundowns players have had to cancel their holidays after Sundowns got reinstated to the Champions League following AS Vita’s disqualification. Mosimane says they are managing the workload of the players.
“If the rest is eight days, we rest for four days and we train for four days. That’s the strategy. We try as much to give them holidays but our holidays will start in December. Our programme changes. There’s Afcon, that’s our off season. I think there’s six weeks there. We will give them three weeks. Unfortunately, for two years we have been rolling like this,” said the former SuperSport United coach.
In two weeks time, Mosimane and his men will head to Egypt for a clash with Zamalek. Mosimane will be oozing confidence since his men recently beat Algerian side ES Setif away in North Africa. It remains to be seen if he can guide his men to his dream.
Mosimane also signed a new four year deal with Sundowns on Wednesday and revealed his focus is on the job and not the contract.
“I got the contract (on Wednesday), I signed and I delivered. For me a contract is just a piece of paper,” said Mosimane after Sundowns’ win over Enyimba. - The Star