Inside Pitso Mosimane’s ‘quiet’ dressing room

Whatever happens during this crazy and unpredictable period in football, the bottom line is that Sundowns head coach, Pitso Mosimane, will always choose to have a “quiet” dressing room.

You may wonder what he means by a quiet dressing room, since one of the factors that characterise a typical South African locker-room is the high-spirited singing, mostly of struggle songs and those hymns you would usually hear in the deep corners of townships and taverns.

But, that is far from the quietness that Mosimane wants. He does not call for dead silence. If anything, he encourages comradery. The only time he expects mouths to remain shut is when he benches a player or reduces their participation to spectator level up in the stands on match-day.

Masandawana veteran defender Wayne Arendse has been part of Mosimane’s dressing room from the first day that “Jingles” took training at Chloorkop back in 2012. He exclusively tells Phakaaathi what exactly informs the 2016 African Coach of the Year’s definition of a quiet dressing room.

“When the coach speaks about a quiet dressing room, he means that when there is a player (from another team) who does not play, you will always hear them talking but in our case, there is nothing like that,” said Arendse.

“If I am going to play ahead of someone, that guy will support me because he knows that if he does not play in the league he is playing in the cup next week or playing in the Caf Champions League.

“Everyone has that … spirit in the dressing room, there is no one bad-mouthing the other. It is quiet, to put it that way. You will never hear ‘this and that player had a scuffle at training’ because those are things that might end up in the media. Everything is proper, we do our business quietly,” Arendse added.

There was  a time where former Sundowns winger, George Lebese had been frozen out of the team, it appeared, for reasons known by former Bafana Bafana coach Mosimane and his right-hand men, Manqoba Mngqithi and Wendell Robinson. Lebese was, albeit quite vaguely, a bit vocal about his lack of game time and this, according to Arendse, is what irks Mosimane.

Lebese, of course, is no longer at Choorklop.

“Those are the things that can disturb a changing room, where you have half of the players who are not playing. He (Mosimane) told us before the season started in pre-season, we are playing in the league, the cups and the Champions League, there are just too many games for 11 guys to play. He said everybody will play and he spreads the game time around as much as he can.

“It is all about understanding the club, the coach and everything that is happening around you. You need to know why you are here … when you are at a team like Sundowns you know why they signed you.

“You need to produce and do your bit as well, on and off the field … there are a lot of players in South Africa who neglect the off the field part because it is of utmost importance as well. If you are busy with wrong things off the field it will catch up with you on the field.”

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