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.

The seed is planted

“I actually wanted to become a physical trainer. I got interested in it in Greece because I had never been fit in my career and then suddenly when I got there, my physical trainer [Gregory Georgitsas] became my friend.

“We hung out together. He was a runner, he did half marathons and marathons and represented Greece. He was my friend and I’d go training with him.

“He said, ‘come with me; if I do 10 laps, you do four’. That’s how I started to get involved in these things. Suddenly I was doing eight laps, and then I was running alongside him. It was late in my career, but I’d never been that fit before.

“That’s when I started to say to myself, ‘I should have met this guy earlier in my life’. My first coaching job was in Belgium at Rita Berlaar, the club where I played. I was assistant coach for the Under-11s! The coach was just one of the supporters and there were times when he didn’t pitch.

“I had an interest and because we trained mornings and afternoons, my evenings were free and I asked, ‘can I help there?’. They said, ‘yes, please help with the Under-11s because their coach has a job that sometimes means he is not here’.

“The guy very quickly dumped the team with me! Although he took the kids to their games on the weekends because I was playing. But in the week I was coaching. It was hectic. I was a bit all over the place, but I liked it. I felt there was something there.”

Back in South Africa

“When I came back I played again for Mamelodi Sundowns, when ClemensWesterhof was coach. I didn’t get on with him, he’s a little bit haughty about me having played in Greece, which he said was not the same standard as Holland, where he comes from.