Mokwena looking forward to meeting Al-Ahly post Mosimane era

Perhaps what made the Caf Champions League fixture between Mamelodi Sundowns and Al-Ahly so exciting was the fact that former Downs mentor, Pitso “Jingles” Mosimane, was the head coach at the Red Devils.

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Now that “Jingles” is in Saudi Arabia calling the shots at Al-Ahli Jeddah, Masandawana will have a hard time in figuring new Al Ahly coach Marcel Koller’s style of play and philosophy, compared to Mosimane who was relatively an open book to the Sundowns coaches who worked with him for a number of years.

Mosimane left behind a legacy of winning two Champions League titles for the North African side, with the 10th one coming against Soweto giants Kaizer Chiefs.

Sundowns and Al-Ahly have been drawn into the same group yet again and will renew their rivalry next year. Mokwena is anticipating another tough clashes against the Red Devils.

“It’s always difficult to travel to Cairo, Al-Ahly are always tough to play against away from home. Not just with the hostility of the environment, but they have changed the coach and there is some improvement with the squad,” said Mokwena.

“We expect it to be different technically. We have seen a couple of their games but now we have to zoom in with a technical focus but we have our analysts that are working around the clock to get us as much information that we can. Over the years, this has now become a big fixture.

“It is going to be a strategic game given how Al-Ahly always seem to play against Sundowns. The personality that they adopt both in the home and away matches is totally different but it will be interesting because these are two teams that know each other and they have the quality to play against each other,” Mokwena added.

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Al-Ahly are not the only familiar face in Group B, with Sudan’s Al-Hilal Omdurman being one team that was part of the same group last season. However, there is the addition of 2008 finalist Coton Sport of Cameroon, who Mokwena looks forward to visiting.

“There are huge resemblances with regards to familiarity last season in the group that we had. We are travelling to Egypt again this season and we had a very interesting trip to Sudan last season and we are looking forward to it this season. They are a difficult team and they have some really good players, some which we are familiar with, like Gerald Phiri (plays for Al-Hilal),” said Mokwena.

“There’s an interesting trip to Cameroon. There are a lot of very difficult teams that have made it into the group stages. Over the years, the Champions League has always become such a difficult competition for everybody, regardless of who is in our group,” Mokwena concluded.