If ever you spend some time in the company of former SuperSport United and Mamelodi Sundowns defender, Japie Motale, you are guaranteed a time of laughter and a well-narrated trip to football tales of yesteryear.
The ex-Moroka Swallows full-back had a sit down with the Arena Sports Show where he spoke about the exciting character that his former coach Pitso Mosimane, was back in the day before all the success that has followed him in his career.
There are many stories of ‘Jingles’ being said to be a disciplinarian and one who relates to his players even beyond the training pitch and match day.
Mosimane is usually credited for being the first Premier Soccer League coach to adopt the manager role versus the common coaching role.
In most football nations, a manager is heavily involved in the scouting and player recruitment, is privy to footballers’ salaries while also dealing with some administrative duties, among other key responsibilities.
A coach, on the hand, is responsible for the tactical and technical planning and team selection.
Mosimane assumed the role of being a manager as early as his days as an interim head coach at SuperSport United.
"You live football, eat football, sleep football" - That was our motto under Pitso Mosimane.
“That man had a calling. This is not something most coaches do. Whenever you leave the camp, you live your own lifestyle but with coach Pitso, he would follow through,” Motale told Arena Sports Show.
“One day after training coach asked, ‘Who does not have DStv and Telkom’, then we raised our hands.
“He said ‘These ones, after training we are going to Telkom and DStv, Stan (Matthews) will sort it out. At night I won’t call a player on a cellphone, I want you on the landline’.
“He would call and say, ‘Go to this channel, there is Juventus playing, you must check how the right-back is moving… tomorrow you and me will talk’.
“I think that is how he managed to win things and the belief that he had. When they gave him a two-year contract, the first thing that they did was to write PSL, Caf Champions League and Bafana Bafana.
“He then turned and looked at us and said, ‘I am going to win the league, I am going to win the Champions League, and I am going to be the coach of Bafana’.
“We thought he was mad for wanting all those things because where was he going to get the league, there was no budget at SuperSport.
“But as a person working under him, you could take it and say it was the power of the tongue because he achieved all of those things today,” Motale explained.
While Mosimane – whom most of his former players refer to him as ‘Mdala’ (loosely translated to old man) is one of the straight talkers in African football, he does have a pretty select sense of humour where he can be addressing a serious matter in a tone and choice of words that will leave you bursting out in laughter. A compilation of some of his funniest moments can be viewed here.
Motale recalled when his former teammate, Peter ‘Fire’ Khoabane purchased a vehicle – a Volkswagen Golf 4, which was a hot shot in those days.
“Fire Khoabane did not have a car, and he bought a Golf 4, so he did not know who parked where. He parked on ‘Mdala’s parking lot.
“When ‘Mdala’ arrived, he went inside and asked whose car was parked on his spot, they told him it was Fire’s car.
“And when he addresses things, he does not address things immediately, sometimes he forgets about you and whenever he is on a serious talk, then he makes contact with you, he changes there and there. One time he was coaching and then saw ‘Fire’.
Motale continued recalling how Mosimane addressed the issue of his stolen parking bay: “Fire mfethu, you are parking on my spot, you are being a nuisance with a Golf 4?
“If you buy a Lamborghini we won’t train, you’ll park in the centre of the field, and we will look at the car the whole day.”
Mosimane is currently without a job as he focuses on the Pitso Mosimane Schools Soccer. However, there is still much appetite for him and his lieutenants to return to the dugout as the three-time Champions League winner’s next move is highly anticipated.
