Pitso Mosimane was again unhappy with his treatment on his return to face Sundowns. Picture: Sydney Mahlangu/Backpagepix.
Pitso Mosimane cut a very angry and frustrated figure as his Al-Ahly side was brought to its knees, losing 1-0 to Sundowns in the Caf Champions League for the second time in a week.
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Peter Shalulile was the hero for Masandawana at FNB Stadium, as he netted to only goal of the game to seal Sundowns’ place in the quarterfinals.
However, that defeat left a bitter taste in Mosimane’s mouth, as he spat a lot of venom about his former employers.
“There is always drama when I come here,” said “Jingles”, referring to an incident where Sundowns fans closed the road, preventing the Al-Ahly bus passage to the stadium and forced the defending champions to use an alternative route to enter the FNB Stadium.
Mosimane accused Bafana Ba Style of deploying dirty tactics and pleaded that Sundowns should “let go” of him.
“I am strong in football, I have been alone. I have played for this team and you cannot break my system. In football I am strong and I am powerful in my own capacity” said Mosimane.
“I don’t want to talk a lot about Sundowns. I will tell you [one day] about what happened when we played Sundowns in Cairo. There are too many things that happened personally to me but I don’t want to talk about. I am over those things but it is unbelievable. I will talk in my book and in my documentary and you will get the shock of your life about what is happening. They are still after me.
“They must leave me alone, they have three coaches… what do you (Sundowns) want? Leave me alone, move on. I have done my best and I have given you a great team. Why are you after me, what do you want to achieve. It is quite sad, such a big team but they are playing dirty,” he added. .
With Downs topping Group A with 10 points, the onus is on the defending champions to pull a rabbit out of the hat to advance to the quarterfinals. The Red Devils are level on four points with Al-Merreikh and Al-Hilal Omdurman, who they face in their penultimate match and last game in the pool phase. Mosimane is more than confident that he can guide Ahly to the knockout stages.
“The group stages will deceive you but we have experience. You can win all of the group games but let’s go to the knockout stages and see. We have to win the next two games and they are in Cairo so we have no excuse. We have done this before, it is going to be tough but the stars on the emblem [show that we can do it]” said Mosimane.
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