In the heat of a December afternoon in 2017, football fans caught a glimpse of the mischief and cheek that those who grew up with Pitso Hamilton Mosimane in Rockville would have probably witnessed daily.
In the world of football, December is the month when titles are won or lost. This is when men are separated from boys, the pretenders fall by the wayside, and genuine title challengers start their unmistakable climb up the ladder.
This is when the true character of everyone, the coaches, the players and even the club owners, is revealed.
It is a meat grinder through which few can come through the other side intact. During this tough fixture pile-up, the mischievous boy who used to stalk the streets of Rockville reared his naughty little head.
“Aren’t you tired of seeing us? People are braaing; people are at the beach. Can we also go?” a smirking Mosimane quizzed SuperSport’s Phumlani Msibi during an interview.
‘Jingles’ just had to be forgiven for craving some pap and wors. Or gazing into a fading sun setting on the far end of calm ocean waters.
Mamelodi Sundowns are often a team that challenges on all fronts, and it was no different during Mosimane’s record-breaking reign.
His team would have been exhausted from tussling with titans at home and on the continent as they chased silverware. The matches were coming thick and fast even in December, and the sight of pap and vleis sizzling on braai stands must have been enticing to the fatigued players slugging it out in the rain and heat of December.
However, the way he delivered it, with swag and reckless abandon, bordered on arrogance. That showed that the charismatic Mosimane was not just another coach.
A PANTSULA ARTIST OR AN ACCOUNTANT
Here was a man that was not there only to talk tactics in front of the camera but also to entertain while challenging the status quo. At his best, he is a showman, and this was not Mosimane the coach talking.
This was now the lad who spent his days stalking the streets of Rockville now voicing his amusement at the fact that modern football’s demanding schedule was denying him his dose of fun. The world was being introduced to one of his many faces.
It is a collage some might have seen a fortnight ago when he posted some snaps from a Nedbank advertising campaign.
“… I could have been anything from a Pantsula artist or an accountant!” Mosimane quips in the caption that accompanies a quartet of images.
The picture of the supposed Pantsula artist is the most striking, as it brings to the fore ‘Pitso the showman’ again.
A NORMAL KASI BOY
With a spotty poised delicately on his head, a matching khaki shirt, a gold chain, and a watch on his wrists, Mosimane indeed looks like a typical Pantsula performer.
For good measure, he even drops his shades just a tad below his eyes as if reckoning a lady that might have caught his fancy from his car window. If a picture is worth a thousand words, that one snap would have at least half of those delivered in tsotsi taal.
For those who grew up around him, it is unsurprising that he could pull off such a look convincingly. He is the stereotypical kasi boy who made it big.
“Pitso was like any normal boy ekasi. He came from a privileged family,” recalls Paradise Moeketsi.
“His father had some businesses. Pitso was a loxion boy, but ubeyintwana le [he was that kid] that you’d never find in trouble. He dreamt big.”
While Mosimane’s family home was in Senaoane, his heart was in Rockville. “Our area is Rockville. He comes from Kagiso, but they invested in a house in Senaoane when he was about 12. Pitso was a typical boy coming from Kagiso.
“In Rockville, we played football until late in the evening. There was a pitch with grass there, so we were privileged to have that facility. “Rockville is close to Senaoane. Pitso’s life was in Senaoane. He only went to Senaoane to sleep, but he spent all his time in Rockville,” Moeketsi tells FARPost.
PITSO MOSIMANE THE FRUGAL ACCOUNTANT
In the same picture collage for the Nedbank ad, the 58-year-old mentor claims that he could have been an accountant if life had taken him down a different career path.
Moeketsi has spoken about how even from a young age, Mosimane would save up money to buy footballs, even though he was just a young player himself. This is another side of Mosimane: the frugal accountant from ekasi who was willing to maximise his little earnings to get ahead in life.
“He would save money to buy balls. I remember that at one time, he bought us 10 soccer balls,” Moeketsi says.
Sometimes Mosimane will not hold back. He can take snipes, some deserved, at referees, opposition coaches and even players.
In his desire to win, in his determination to never give a quarter to the opposition, one can see another side of the former Al Ahly coach. His win-at-all-costs mentality has propelled him to the top, giving him success on two continents and making him one of the great coaches to come from Africa.
It is a determination that he had even as a young player who constantly outjumped opponents much taller than him to become one of the best headers of the ball.
“He was one of the shortest players, but he was one of the best headers of the ball. At some point, most of his goals came from headers,” Moeketsi says.
THE SMALL DECISIONS MAKING IMPACT
In the Nedbank ad, he signs off by saying, “I am proud of the small decisions I have made that have made the biggest impact.” Given the success he has enjoyed throughout his career, it is tempting to assume that the three-time CAF Champions League winner is who he is because of the work he put in later in his career, particularly at Sundowns, where his career blossomed.
However, for those that grew up with him, he always had a calculating, ambitious side to him, which gave him the foresight to recognise that his ultimate destination could only be reached with a thousand small steps.
“Pitso was around 15 when I got to know him. He was passionate about football and school. So he had ambitions to be an educated soccer player. He really loved school. Pitso was a born winner,” adds Moeketsi.
Another childhood friend, Mike Ntombela, also recalls how they were already familiar with Mosimane the coach, even at a young age.
“I was close to Pitso Mosimane because we grew up together. The day Zola Mahube approached me to come and play for Sundowns, I called him. I told him he had to come and join us [at Sundowns].
“I would go to his dad’s shop after school. If he were not there, I would sit and wait for him to return. The interesting thing I noticed whenever we played football was that he wanted to be coaching us on the field. You could already tell he had this coaching thing in him. Even after he hung his boots, he invested a lot in his coaching,” Ntombela tells FARPost.
INVESTING IN COACHING
Investing in coaching also meant unveiling another one of his many faces. Like many aspiring coaches, one must start at the grassroots. It was at this stage that ‘Pitso Mosimane the mentor’ came to the fore. Here was a young coach showing that he could mould young players into future professionals. It is an invaluable trait that has continued to serve him as he progressed in his career.
“After he returned from overseas [after stints in Greece, Belgium, and Qatar], we were developing youngsters in Soweto with Sam Mbatha. Pitso talked a lot about coaching – analysing games, and getting involved. He used to bring us soccer boots when he was overseas for the ‘Morning Show’. That’s where he developed an interest in coaching.
“When the Discovery Tournament started, I asked him to coach one of the teams. So, he began at the Morning Show and developed a love for coaching.
“He then tried working with Sundowns’ development, but it didn’t work out initially. He then came back, and we established the Barney Molokoane Football Academy.
“That’s where he coached boys like Gerald Modabi and Seuntjie Motlhajwa and Cavann Sibeko. We took some of those boys to SuperSport United and developed a relationship with SuperSport. That’s how we got in,” says Moeketsi.
BLENDED INTO A HISTORY-MAKING COACH
Pitso Mosimane, the streetwise kasi boy, the showman, the frugal, forward-thinking visionary, and the win-at-all-costs mentor, have over the years been blended into a history-making coach who has broken barriers in South Africa and beyond.
He is undoubtedly the country’s most successful coach, having lifted five domestic league titles among his endless trophy collection.
Al Ahli Saudi’s coach is a man who is not only a product of his environment but of the thousand small decisions he made over the years as he set his sights on the man and coach he has become.
The world is seeing the fruits of a well-thought-out strategy mapped out by a young boy in rooms in Soweto.
South Africa waits with bated breath to see which mountain peak the Kasi boy will scale next!
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