With no football to talk of in Zimbabwe right now, much of the debate in the week has centred on Pitso Mosimane’s improbable switch to Egyptian giants Al-Ahly.
The South African coach, a multiple league title winner in his country where his exploits with Mamelodi Sundowns included the African crown, completed the dream move on Thursday.
Just a fortnight after steering Sundowns’ to a third straight league championship, Mosimane burst into a Pretoria conference room packed with eager and eagle-eyed journalists and detonated his bombshell.
“I have today tendered my resignation as Sundowns head coach,” the man they call ‘Jiggles’ exploded.
None in attendance was expecting such news. They thought he had called the conference to reveal new signings.
A bigger shocker lay in wait the following day.
It was officially announced from Egypt that Mosimane had joined Africa’s most successful football club on a lucrative two-year contract that took immediate effect in the North African country.
The jury is now out on whether Mosimane will stand the ground in front of the multitudes that throng the Cairo Military Stadium whenever Al-Ahly, known as the Red Devils, are in action.
Mosimane bragged to reporters that he was at the same wave-length as reputed Manchester City mentor Pep Guardiola and there should be no doubt about his pedigree to last the distance in Egypt.
”Pep is Spanish but that has not confined him to his home area as he went on to coach in Germany and England, cutting across cultural and language barriers,”
”We have similar mindsets and it will not be difficult for me to operate in a different cultural setting.”
Pisto Mosimane
No one wishes the Southern African football expert ill.
It is only the apparent underestimation of the impending uphill challenge that his followers are worried about.
Succeeding in the hotbed that is Egyptian football will take much more than acculturation. It will also, and mostly, require tactfulness
Mosimane had nothing left to win in the Super Diski. The latest title victory with the Midrand-based side was their third in a row and part of an unprecedented cup and league treble having also swept the premier Nedbank Cup and the Telkom Knockout Challenge during the same 2019-2020 season.
His tentacles spread to the continental front where he guided Sundowns to their first African Champions League glory in 2019, beating record winners Al-Ahli in the final.
Surely, he now deserved to transfer his coaching acumen elsewhere and it was Al-Ahly who were at hand to present him with that opportunity.
Mosimane now finds himself tracking the footsteps of his hallowed predecessors such as former Portugal mentor Manuel Jose in Ahli’s dressing room.
Jose was among the most successful coaches at the Cairo glamour side, leaving with numerous domestic and continental accolades in his wake.
The Portuguese coach had not only learnt to assimilate into Egyptian customs and traditions but had also managed to inculcate his football philosophy into the headstrong Ahli players who at that time included Mohammed Salah, now a Liverpool celebrity.
Mosimane must realize that the terrain has changed.
Egyptians prefer a fast and furious type of football, punctuated with frustrating delaying tactics, all ingredients of the total package that Mosimane must master.
That Al-Ahly, Egypt’s current league champions, try by all means to defend their culture is not in question.
Historically, therefore, Mosimane is the only non-Egyptian African to coach the 100+-year old club, the first-ever black person to take charge there and also the first foreigner of any nation to do so in eight years.
He has quite some ambassadorial role to play for people of his colour in the sub-Saharan region.
Al-Ahli supporters, who number millions, seldom accept defeat to bitter arch-rivals Zamalek and their derbies at the downtown Cairo International Stadium are never anything to miss when one is in the Pharaohs’ capital.
For one not accustomed as a participant to high-voltage clashes such as the cross-city derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates back at home, Mosimane will, above culture and language, also need a thick skin.
African football analysts believe the difference in whether the Soweto-born mentor will pass or fail the Egyptian test lies in the calibre of assistants he will work with.
As yet it has not been ascertained from his contract whether or not the former Bafana Bafana tactician will be entitled to pick his own lieutenants.
There is a possibility that among those who will take up residence in Africa’s biggest metropolis alongside Pitso is former Warriors captain Peter Ndlovu.
Ndlovu has been on Mosimane’s side for six years and, as team manager, earns part of the credit for Mamelodi Sundowns’ phenomenal triumphs during that period.
But the warning is for Mosimane not to crowd the bench with his national or regional compatriots but rather reserve a few slots for home-grown Egyptian advisers if he is to receive able guidance on the Arabian players he will be barking orders to and against.
Perhaps except Zamalek, everyone in Africa wishes Jiggles well.
