Looking at Pitso’s record against ‘awkward’ Kaizer Chiefs

Pitso Mosimane exchanged plenty of blows against Kaizer Chiefs during his time as Mamelodi Sundowns but never has there been a more important match versus Amakhosi than now as he has to take on the Glamour Boys in the final of the Caf Champions League later in July.

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Mosimane, who is the head coach of Al Ahly, will be looking to land his second Champions League title with the Red Devils, which will be his third and incidentally, a record-extending 10th Champions League crown for the Egyptian giants.

“Jingles” first meeting with Amakhosi while at the helm of Downs was in February 2013, where the Soweto giants held Downs to a goalless draw in Pretoria, and what followed was a rivalry for the league against Stuart Baxter, who is now in his second spell as Chiefs coach.

Mosimane has played Chiefs in a cup final before and that was back in the 2015 edition of the Telkom Knockout. Sundowns were too dominant for a Chiefs side that was coached by Steve Komphela at that time, beating them 3-1 at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.

Sundowns would go on to administer another 3-1 hiding over Amakhosi, this time in the league in 2016.

Having met Chiefs on numerous occasions, Mosimane has taken a few losses along the way and the biggest of those was when Sundowns lost 4-2 in October of 2019. However, that did not matter much as it was a friendly match in the Shell Helix Cup. The significance, however, is that Sundowns had gone 4-0 down at half-time courtesy of strikes from their former boys, Leonardo Castro – who netted a hatrick – and Khama Billiat.

The stage is set for a meeting in Morocco on July 17 and it appears as though Mosimane is not sure of what to expect.

“Chiefs is one of the biggest teams in South Africa in terms of the support, they are bigger than Sundowns, they have got a bigger support base,” Mosimane explained to reporters in Egypt after his side beat Esperance 3-0 to secure a passage to the final with a 4-0 aggregate scoreline.

“I can easily speak about Orlando Pirates or Sundowns, but Chiefs… I don’t know what is coming,” said Mosimane.

He added: “Chiefs are a good team but for me they are awkward. You can’t describe it easily. They finished number eight in the DStv Premiership but they are in the Champions League final. You have to pay attention to them because they are a very strong team in terms of organisation, they don’t give away goals easily. They don’t score a lot but they can defeat you. They scored four goals against Simba and we didn’t even score four goals against Simba.”