Suits make you look smarter but you must win the game – Pitso

You might find one or two from the Premier Soccer League awards ceremony or the Confederation of African Football awards where he was crowned Coach of the Year in 2016.

Most coaches who usually wear tracksuits in the dugout often abandon their trackies and opt for a suit when they play in a cup final. But for “Jingles”, you see, cup final or not, he will always stick to his baggy track-pants and loose-fitting top. Oh, he doesn’t wear a cap either on match days. You’d only see him spotting one at training.

Mosimane does not have anything against suits but his preoccupation is more about winning the game and getting the results more than how he looks.

“I don’t have one (a suit). I have got my tracksuits and I do what I am supposed to do. I don’t know if suits helps [with winning] but all I know is that it helps with appearance and you look smarter and people look at you differently when you come with a suit,” said Mosimane.

“I have seen coaches wearing jackets, shopping and making sure that they have got the right shirt and suits but at the end of the day you must win the game,” he adds.

In fact, all that Mosimane cares much about is delivering the results and therefore gets easily irritated by obstacles that might make it difficult for Masandawana to play to the best of their abilities.

The most recent source of annoyance came this past Sunday when Downs played the Vaal University of Technology in the Nedbank Cup and beat them 2-0 at the Lucas Moripe Stadium.

His issue was the length of the grass – it was too long and spongy, which, according to the former Bafana Bafana coach, made it difficult for his team to move the ball as fast as they would have liked.

“I was so unhappy, it is unbelievable, it was our home game and how can we have the grass that long? It was like a rugby pitch. The ball doesn’t flow. Did you see players trying to pull the ball and they leave it behind and they fall on it. It was too long and too heavy. The groundsman should not decide what the length of the grass should be because it works against us,” said Mosimane.

“We cannot play Al-Ahly with a pitch like this. We have got fast players so we need to move the ball quickly and if we can’t move the ball quickly we are playing against ourselves. But we will see, I will speak to Sundowns and maybe the tractor (that cuts grass) that I have at Chloorkop must go to the stadium, it must stay there because we can’t play on a pitch like that. It works on our calves also because it is heavy,” said Mosimane as they will host Egyptian giants Al-Ahly in the return leg of the Caf Champions League quarterfinal next month.

“Jingles” says he will address his issue to the relevant people and he does not care of the person responsible is wearing a suit or an overall.

“What is my job at Sundowns? It is to train the team, pick the team and make sure that the team wins and I need to put the team where it is supposed to be and I think we are doing that at the moment. My job is not all these other things, politics. Everybody knows what they are supposed to do so I will have to complain and speak to the relevant people whether they are wearing a suit or an overall, I will talk to the guy and tell him he is compromising the results. Football is about results.

“Sometimes in South Africa, we make a mistake and we think football management is supposed to be over the technical team. Technical is over management in football. Do you know the general manager of Liverpool? You don’t know the name, who cares? You know Jurgen Klopp.

“If any manager or general manager doesn’t do his job, I have to focus on the players. If he affects my program and my travelling, then I go in. But I don’t want to know if we have the right offices or we have the right chairs, that is not my job. The coach must win the match. A coach does not win politics in the office and once you go there, you will have problems. I have a lot of experience and I have had a lot of challenges and I focus on football. On football at Sundowns, there’s a lot of things but I don’t focus [on it]. My focus is on football [and] is the player ready to play,” said Mosimane.

He said if those responsible don’t budge, he would escalate the matter to club owner Patrice Motsepe.

“My job is to train the team and make sure that the team wins and I think we are doing that at the moment. My job is not all these other things. Everybody knows what they are supposed to do. I will have to complain, of course, I’ll have to speak to the relevant people, whether he is wearing an overall or a suit, I will talk to the guy and tell him that the ‘you are compromising the results here’. If I don’t get [help] I go to the boss and tell him ‘if you want to beat Al-Ahly, not on this pitch’. If we have to beg, we will beg.”

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