The Mamelodi Sundowns gaffer has built a body of work that is the envy of many, writes Fiifi Anaman
On Sunday night in Alexandria, Pitso Mosimane, perhaps South Africa's most popular tactician, could barely hide his emotions. What he and his club had achieved was huge for South African football. "To come to Egypt and raise the trophy here … there no sweeter way to lift the trophy!" he beamed as he spoke to reporters after the game. "It’s undisputable…we played here, and we lifted it here. So we really deserve to lift the trophy."
Mamelodi Sundowns’ coach was the happiest coach in Africa, and he'd just become the hottest too. At the immense Borg El Arab Stadium, after an intense 90 minutes played against an intimidating mammoth crowd, the flamboyant South African trainer had sealed his reputation as one of the most successful black coaches working in football today.
It came after some toil. His side lost 1-0 to Egyptian giants Zamalek in the second leg of the 2016 CAF Champions League final. But this was a good loss, a sweet one, as it did very little to change the aggregate score: the Brazilians had secured a 3-0 win in the first leg a week ago. This meant that the 52-year-old had added African Club football's Holy Grail to his already glowing CV.
Indeed, his profile had been steadily stocking up since his first coaching job 16 years ago. As a 31-year-old with a fairly eventful playing career behind him, he became the youngest coach in the South African top flight with his appointment at SuperSport United in July 2001.
Jingles, as he is affectionately called, had a successful stint at SuperSport - the first and only other club he's managed aside Sundowns - forging a reputation as one of the longest serving coaches in the top flight by spending seven years at the club. The tough-talking coach built a fearsome, respectable outfit, winning the Supa 8 trophy in 2004 and the Nedbank Cup - then named ABSA Cup, South Africa's main domestic Cup - in 2005.
In February 2007, Mosimane left his job at SuperSport to take up a role as assistant coach of South Africa's national team, this coming after briefly serving in a part-time capacity as interim coach sometime before. Two years before, his PSL Coach of the Year Award win had uplifted his profile significantly while he continued to make an impact at SuperSport. Indeed, after his departure, the Matsatsantsa went on to win a hat trick of South African league titles from 2008 to 2010, a feat many credited to Mosimane's pioneering work.
Close to four years of serving as assistant coach of Bafana Bafana, Jingles got his dream promotion to the top job in the wake of the 2010 World Cup, where he'd assisted Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira at the tournament hosted at home.
He famously opened his tenure with an inspiring 1-0 friendly win against an in-form Ghana, who had just been Africa’s best performer at the World Cup. He went to oversee a tenure of steady growth, preaching about the meticulous building of a team that he hoped would be ready to win the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations to be hosted at home. “Rome was not built in a day,” he defended himself amid criticisms of slow progress from fans and journalists.
But, barely two years later, the contractor had to leave the construction site before works were completed. A failure to qualify for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations, coupled with a difficult run of form in the months afterward, saw him replaced by compatriot Gordon Igesund. The Afcon 2012 qualification run was infamous for being embroiled in a humiliating mess: Mosimane oversaw a side that bizarrely misread the rules by playing for a draw in their final qualifier against Sierra Leone, only to learn later that they had needed a win to make it to the tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
His return to club football in December 2012 saw him take the reins at Mamelodi Sundowns, a familiar environment, as he had spent time there during his playing days in the mid-1980s. An attacking midfielder, Mosimane, who had begun his career as an 18 year old at Jomo Cosmos in 1982, signed for Sundowns as the most expensive player in South Africa in 1985, going on to help them win a league and cup title.
At the time of his return as coach 27 years later, Masandawana were a club that had been struggling at the bottom half of the South African top flight under Dutchman coach Johan Neeskens. Jingles stepped in with his tools and immediately got to fixing: he managed to guide them to 10th place at the end of the 2012/13 season.
Then, just a year later, he surprisingly pulled an ambitious title win to end the Pretoria-based club's seven-year wait for league success. The triumph, which brought Mosimane his first personal league gold medal, also meant he had delivered a much-craved diadem for Sundowns' millionaire owner and bankroller Patrice Motsepe, who had bought and invested millions in the club in 2003 with only two league wins in 2006 and 2007 to show. Since then, the mining magnate had hired several foreigners - including Henri Michel, Ted Dumitru, Hristo Stoichkov, Antonio Lopez Habas and Neeskens - all in futile attempts to land a league trophy.
In December last year, when he annexed the 2015 Telkom Knockout (South Africa's League Cup), Jingles had completed a rare feat: he had become the first coach ever to win every single trophy on offer in the top level of domestic South African football: the ABSA Premiership, the Nedbank Cup, the Telkom Knockout and the Supa 8.
He would go on to add another league trophy to this line-up, winning last season's premiership with an astonishing 14-point gap at the top of the table, his side playing attractively and attracting many admirers across the South African football landscape.
And, in the Champions League, he steered the club through a bizarre, fairy tale run: they got knocked out, played in the less fancied Confederations Cup and got knocked out there again, only to become beneficiaries of a rare readmission following the disqualification of Congolese side AS Vita. It was a stroke of luck they would exhaustively take advantage of.
Fast forward many months later and Sundowns had gone all the way. The zeal of the Brazilians had seen them culminate a remarkable run with the ultimate, slaying five-time African champions Zamalek 3-1 over two legs to lift the coveted trophy. As they basked in the confetti amid the blissful celebrations marking a historic night, Jingles savoured yet another personal triumph: he had become the first South African born coach to win the Champions League. The only other South Africa club to win the tournament - Orlando Pirates in 1995 - was handled by Scottish coach Joe Frickleton.
“The irony is that I had coaches from all over the world, but I had to wait for a young man from South Africa to show us something we already knew: that we’ve got so much talent in South Africa,” Sundowns bankroller Motsepe told KickOff.
“We must just give our coaches a chance,” he added.
Jingles is jingling the bells of myth busting. He is blazing a trail, bearing a flag. Often, local African coaches – serially stereotyped as incompetent - are rarely given chances. The Gauteng-born Mosimane, though, has had his chance and proved himself beyond worthy, having built a body of work that is currently the envy of many.
Having conquered all there is in his current power to conquer, Africa’s top clubs – and nations – will be lurking to offer him huge sums often reserved for foreign trainers as he begins to consider a new challenge. A big deal would be a big win for himself and for his kind.
And he would have earned it, because this is a talented, hardworking coach who has walked the talk in what has been a difficult journey to the top.