Many football fans know Pitso Mosimane and Manqoba Mngqithi as the high-profile coaches at Mamelodi Sundowns, but forget there’s also Rhulani Mokwena who completes the ‘three musketeers’ of coaches of the Ka BoYellow first team. Mokwena shares how it is to work at Sundowns and what he also brings to the yellow-table that saw the club win their first African Champions League trophy last year. “I’ve been fortunate enough to travel the world. I’ve done my Italian course in 2007 when I was still at Platinum Stars. I’ve travelled to Germany where I met coaches from Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen, and Barcelona in 2009; I’ve gone to Manchester and I’ve just comeback from Liverpool, ”Mokwena tells KICK OFF in this exclusive interview.
KICK OFF: Everyone knows Pitso Mosimane. Briefly tell the KICK OFF readers who Rhulani Mokwena is?
RHULANI MOKWENA: I would describe myself as a coach that is a technician, a student of the game, a young man that has always had the expectations of becoming one of the best coaches in the country. I’m not fortunate enough to have played football; I believe I had the ability to make it, but didn’t due to other circumstances, and maybe also due to the calling and fulfilling a greater purpose. I ended up as a coach, but not by default. I’m a football scholar and I’m a student of the game, that’s the purpose I’m fulfilling.
How and when did your love of coaching start?
To be honest with you, I don’t know. My earliest childhood memory was going to Orlando Stadium ... I remember as a young child being in the change-room, and I can’t even remember who the coach was.
My father [Julius Sono] was playing for Pirates and the coach was busy with the chalkboard – I think I was two or three years old if I’m not mistaken. The other boys were kicking the ball and running around, but I was busy with the chalkboard trying to write what the coach had written on the tactical board.
And I remember the tactical board was black with chalk and when I look back I think those were already the signs of a mutual sort of attraction between me and the coaching board.
In this moment in time I can reflect to connect the dots. I’m then able to realise that I’m probably serving a greater calling. And I think I was 14 when I started taking training sessions with 11-year-olds in Soweto at a club called Triple S [Sabelo Super Stars FC].
Already then I was really working hard to put together training sessions and drills, and I think that’s when I fell in love with coaching.
Esta historia es de la edición March 2017 de Kickoff.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición March 2017 de Kickoff.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
The Best Of South Africa's Clasico
Kaizer Chiefs versus Orlando Pirates is one of football’s great derby matches with a rich history, both good and bad, that has helped to create a sports event that is the biggest in South Africa. It is perhaps the only fixture that can bring the country to a stand-still and down the years there has been some epic fixtures. KICK OFF’s Mark Gleeson picks out 10 of the best.
‘There is more coming'
The arrival of German coach Josef Zinnbauer at Orlando Pirates has coincided with Gabadinho Mhango suddenly raising his performance. His seven goals in Zinnbauer’s first four matches have elevated him to double figures already with a loud shout in the top scorers’ award chase. As Malawi’s top export, Mhango knows he is representing many back home, and thus carries the desire to aim high. He spoke to KICK OFF’s Lovemore Moyo, revealing he believes there is more coming from him.
‘I should have won 12 times'
Samuel Eto’o announced his retirement from professional football in 2019 and leaves behind a legacy that many consider sees him as the greatest African footballer of all time with 18 major titles won for club and country. KICK OFF’s Lorenz Kohler sat down with the four-time CAF African Player of the Year at the Duqesa de Cardona hotel in Barcelona before El Clasico to find out his role in the Castle Lager Africa Fives project and look back on an iconic career that started back in 1997.
The incredible coaching journey of Pitso Mosimane
If Mamelodi Sundowns go on and retain their Absa Premiership title at the end of the season, Pitso Mosimane will have won a fifth championship and become the most successful coach in the history of the sport in South Africa. Soweto-born Mosimane has an all-consuming passion for the game, starting in his playing career and now well into his mid-50s. His hunger for victory remains all too evident, even if the novelty of winning is now long past. With Sundowns he has won four of the last six league championships, and in so doing, matched the feats of four titles won by the likes of Jeff Butler, Ted Dumitru, Gordon Igesund and Gavin Hunt. But he has already gone one better than them by also winning the African Champions League – the Holy Grail on the continent. But how did Mosimane start out coaching, what fueled his passion and what was his journey to the top. It is a fascinating insight, told exclusively to KICK OFF’s Mark Gleeson.
Should He Stay Or Should He Go?
Three months after taking over Orlando Pirates, Rhulani Mokwena hasn’t elevated the club to where the fans expected. This has naturally raised questions about whether it was premature to hand him the job. KICK OFF’s Lovemore Moyo investigates Mokwena’s appointment, tenure and what could possibly be the way forward.
‘We Know How To Win The League'
Mamelodi Sundowns winger Lyle Lakay feels that there is no need to panic over the pace that Kaizer Chiefs have set in the Absa Premiership championship race, insisting that the Brazilians have the edge in terms of experience. KICK OFF’s Lovemore Moyo spoke to the 28-year-old, who spent most of his five years at Bloemfontein Celtic trying to get out of the club.
Chiefs' Missing Link
Kaizer Chiefs’ excellent start to the 2019/20 Premier Soccer League season has been a great team effort, but there is one man who stands out head and shoulders above the rest as the catalyst for their upturn in fortunes. Serbian striker Samir Nurkovic was a little-known journeyman forward before he arrived at Naturena at the beginning of the campaign, but has almost single-handedly improved the side’s attacking fortunes. KICK OFF’s Nick Said investigates what makes Nurkovic such a quality addition and why he can fire Chiefs to the league title.
Mano A Mano In Combat With Mano-Mano
Helder “Mano-Mano” Muianga missed out on a dream move to the English Premier League, but says he still remains proud of his career, which he spent mostly in South Africa. Now he hopes his new project back home in Mozambique will help him emulate his mentor, Jomo Sono.
Silencing The Critics
Having joined as a relatively unknown striker, with no eye-popping history of his ability, Gustavo Paez has begun to settle in well at Kaizer Chiefs over the last six months, and is looking to help Amakhosi return to their glory days in the 2017/18 Premier Soccer League season. Everyone took a dig at his journeyman background and they expected to see another failed mercenary unpack their suitcase at Naturena. Oh, how wrong they were …
Jayiya Lives Childhood Dream
Bhongolwethu Jayiya was part of Cape Town City’s whirlwind debut season, contributing an outstanding hat-trick against Chippa United as the Citizens finished an impressive third on the Absa Premiership table. Now that he has made the incredible step up to the Glamour Boys, a life-long dream of his, the pressure to achieve has been turned up a few notches. Here he tells KICK OFF’s Lovemore Moyo about his journey to Naturena.
