You must give credit to the boys to say they ran the race – Coach Pitso Mosimane

Today the ABSA Premiership’s curtain closes on the 2019/20 season and Mamelodi Sundowns and Kaizer Chiefs are currently on fifty-six points each with the latter on top due to superior goal difference, which adds some great hype into the last day. Mamelodi Sundowns take on Black Leopards who are battling to save their Premiership status.

Coach Pitso Mosimane shared with us how the boys have done this season, “I mean, our team has been a super-team, no team has fought as we did. We fought for quarterfinals at the Champions League. I mean, I think about 12 or 14 games we put on the Champions League. They did not have to deal with travelling, coming back home on a Monday and playing on a Tuesday or Wednesday, that’s huge coming from Morocco. I think the big one was coming from North Africa, landing in South Africa and going to Black Leopards. Yeah, it was a big one. So those are milestones. Those are not done by anybody else. It was a tough one and we did that. And we’ve got maximum points for that. So we fought for the MTN 8, we lost in the semi-finals, we played two more games in the MTN8, they didn’t even play the top eight. Then we went to the Telkom final. They didn’t go there. How many games did we put? And then we now in the Nedbank Cup final. We still put more games, more legs, suspensions, injuries cost a lot of players out. So you look back and say, even if you don’t win the league, you might be saying, you feel hard done and you still have that because he didn’t win the league.”

Coach Pitso Mosimane also touched on the gruesome schedule that the Brazilians had this season and summed it up by outlining what transpired and how challenging it has been.

“You will give credit to the boys to say they ran the race, in a big race and not for one year, seven years to qualify for the Champions League in a row it is a lot of games. You can just imagine how many games they’ve loaded. This be nice and sweet to win it? Unfortunately, both teams are at 50 years. Yes, we all need it. We need it for La Decima for 10 years and 50 years, as I said, you know, it would be strange to be a sweet one if you get it, but you don’t buy it, you fight for it and you’ve got to win your games. But even winning against your game left still doesn’t guarantee you that you were to win it. But we look back and say, yeah, I look at the boys. I said they’ve given their best, you know because I think Chiefs had an easier programme and they know it’s true. You know, they played on Sunday, then they waited to play again on Sunday, even now in the bubble, they’re playing after five days. We were playing for three days. You know, the only maximum rest that we had in between the games was three days. Otherwise, there’s been two days. It has been tough. But because we had an ambitious team, because we want more, because we feel we deserve more and we fight for more. That’s it. You know, we have come far. We fought for this title.”

“If I look back I said we went for three years with him. When I came here we went for three years, we won it twice, they took it once. And then we went for two years with Wits and Wits won it once and we won it once. And then Pirates we went for two years with them neck and neck until last year we won it twice. Chiefs’ came back again. We’re fighting again with Chiefs. We have been the common denominator for the last seven years. So I would say a team of the decade,” concluded Coach Pitso Mosimane