'Even now I don’t know if I won the league title‚' says Pitso Mosimane

Pitso Mosimane has explained why he was overcome with emotion after leading Mamelodi Sundowns to the league title a few days ago.

The forthright mentor conceded that he was a bundle of emotions after his charges beat Free State Stars 1-0 in the final match of the season at Goble Park in Bethlehem to lift the trophy for the second season in a row.

“It is emotional‚ this one is big for me for many reasons including winning the league back-to-back because it is not easy‚" he said.

"If it was easy everyone would do it.

“The programme was overloaded with two Caf Champions League campaigns inside the 30 games of the Premier Soccer League.

"Another story is that this is a team in construction after the loss of Khama Billiat and Percy Tau.

"If you ask me whether I believed that we would win the league‚ my answer would be no to be honest because we did not score enough goals.

“There are the other emotional reasons‚ you won the league but you still don’t know if you have it.

"Even now I don’t know if I won the league‚ all I know is that I have the medal and the trophy‚ so let’s see what happens."

The Sundowns legal team is preparing to fight the PSL's appeal of the ruling by its Disciplinary Committee regarding the Pretoria club's fielding of ineligible player Wayne Arendse in a game against Bidvest Wits last year.

Arendse's name was not on the team sheet that was handed to officials on the day of the game seven months ago and joined the team straight from the stands after Thapelo Morena's injury.

The DC issued a R250,000 fine to Sundowns and R50,000 to Arendse last week but the PSL now says the decision was incorrect and have appealed to the SA Football Association (Safa) in a bid to overturn the sanction.

The PSL wants Wits to be awarded a 3-0 win to substitute the monetary fine that was imposed by the DC.

The matter is set to be heard in the coming days.

"But‚ it has been very emotional and it was a big one like I said‚" Mosimane said.

"I celebrated with the boys but really it was emotional to win it away (from home) again.

"Hopefully next time it will be in Pretoria‚ maybe the roll of the dice will see us play our last game in Pretoria next time.”

Asked to reflect on his fourth league title in just over six years at the club‚ Mosimane said his success was never about him.

“You can be humble and say thank you and you can also ask if it’s about you and it is not about me‚" he said.

"There are records that the other coaches who have won four league titles have done and there are records that I have and they don’t have.

“What’s important is to make sure that we play Champions League football again next season because these boys deserve to play in that tournament.

"That is what we promise them when we sign them.

"I must congratulate the rest of the coaches in the league and my friend Milutin Sredojević.

"He must not despair because Rome was not built in one day‚ look at Jurgen Klopp at Loverpool and Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur.

"Sometimes you need a little bit of luck but Micho has improved Pirates and they gave us a scary race to the title.”