Cavin Johnson says Pitso Mosimane has figured out the steps to negotiating the big matches in the Caf Champions League knockout stages, and in Al Ahly he has the team with the pedigree, class and discipline toT apply those.
Ahly drew 2-2 against ES Setif in Algeria on Saturday night to wrap up a resounding 6-2 aggregate semifinal progression to the May 30 dream final against Moroccan giants Wydad Athletic at their home ground, the 80,000-seat Stade Mohammed V in Casablanca.
There Mosimane will seek to become the first coach to win three Caf Champions Leagues in succession, which would write him into the annals of Africa’s greatest football club.
Mamelodi Sundowns’ 2016 Champions League-winning coach Mosimane has become a past master at knowing where it’s important to win in Africa’s premier continental club competition and where it’s not a disaster to lose. His formidable experience in the group and knockout stages, where his renowned meticulous planning comes to the fore, has developed the South African’s ability to plot wins in the big games.
Johnson was Mosimane’s assistant at Ahly for almost a year from October 2020 to September 2021. The ex-Platinum Stars and SuperSport United coach points out that, like a Grand Prix driver, when you’re among the very best in your trade and also have the best car you’re going to win.
All respect to Pitso — he’s done a fantastic job. He’s got into a third Champions League final in a row and probably the only coach to have done that.
— Cavin Johnson
Mosimane, on track record, is considered among the five best coaches in Africa. He’s also riding a wave on the best surfboard — a club with a 115-year-old pedigree, and all the players, facilities, wealth and stability that come with that.
And the car, or surfboard, if the reader will excuse the mixed metaphors, has a rider who between Sundowns and Ahly has competed at the Champions League knockout-stage level now in seven editions, winning three of them. So the pedigree goes both ways.
At the heart of Mosimane’s football, even when he coached as pretty a team as Sundowns, is discipline. At Ahly he has players capable of enforcing a disciplined game plan better than most clubs. Egyptian football is built on the foundations of organisation and discipline.
“All respect to Pitso — he’s done a fantastic job. He’s got into a third Champions League final in a row and probably the only coach to have done that,” Johnson said.
“At the same time, when you look at it, the time spent at Sundowns was probably his learning curve on what the Champions League is all about. He was there [in the knockout stages] with Sundowns quite a few times.”
In this campaign’s group phase, Sundowns beat Ahly home and away, but Mosimane prophetically warned his old team that the Champions League gets serious in the knockout phase. Downs were shocked by Angola’s Petro Atletico in the quarters, and their old boss is in another final.
“When he says the competition starts in the knockout phases that is so true — I have been there with him and seen that in practice,” Johnson said.
“At the same time I’ve got to give the team credit. Pitso knows how to get to the final. But as important is the 115 years that are behind Al Ahly.
“It comes with a lot of responsibility for the present generation of players. Sundowns don’t have that same history behind them and so don’t really know what it’s like to have that expectation and be competing at that top level for a very long time.
“But you’ve also got to give Pitso the credit for knowing when to press and when to relax. He knows how to get there and when he’s there he’ll bite on it like a shark.”
Wydad, arguably the second-strongest club to Ahly in Africa, were the nemesis side that repeatedly stood in the way of Mosimane winning a second Champions League at Sundowns.
Soon after his move to Egypt in late September 2020 the coach seemed to put his Wydad hoodoo behind him when Ahly swept aside the Casablanca club 5-1 on aggregate in the semifinals on the way to beating bitter Cairo rivals Zamalek in the 2019/20 final.
Johnson, though, feels that was a Wydad in a dip, and now the wealthy Moroccan outfit have built their strength again. This may be Mosimane’s toughest final of the three he’s had at Ahly — last campaign the Red Devils brushed off overawed shock finalists Kaizer Chiefs 3-0.
“Wydad also have history behind them. They wane and they rebuild. Five, six years ago Al Ahly were also going out in the group stages and semifinals. And the final is being played in Casablanca, which is a major advantage for Wydad.”
Having signed a new contract at Ahly in March after lengthy negotiations, soon after a second third-placed finish in succession at the Fifa Club World Cup, winning an unprecedented third Champions League in a row would solidify Mosimane’s position and justify the board’s decision.
That would carry symbolism past personal success. Mosimane as the first black sub-Saharan African to coach the continent’s most successful club is flying the flag for black coaches globally, a point picked up by the New York Times when that paper questioned FIFA’s snub of the South African in the global ruling body’s Coach of the Year awards.
If Ahly beat Wydad Mosimane will join Red Devils legend Manuel Jose, who only won two Champions Leagues in succession, though notched four overall at the club, as the two most successful coaches in the competition on four titles. Even Fifa might have to take notice then.
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