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Pitso Mosimane has spoken in detail about how the late Ted Dumitru inspired him to become a coach.
Mosimane didn’t have enough playing time at Mamelodi Sundowns in the late 1990s and Dumitru encouraged him to coach one of the club’s youth teams, and he never looked back.
While still a senior player, Mosimane began to focus more on the youth team that had players like Mbulelo “OJ” Mabizela, Bennett Mnguni, Benedict “Tso” Vilakazi, Jonas Mavimbela and Michael Shata.
“Ted Dumitru told me, you can do this and he gave me what it was like to be an MDC team,” Mosimane said, as he walked down memory lane.
“I started to coach that team and you have to remember that I was still a player at that time when we won the three titles in a row. Officially, the assistant coach was Augustine Makalakalane and I was like a second assistant.
“As time went on, I started to enjoy this and by the way, Raphael Chukwu and ‘Mambush’ [Daniel Mudau] It kept me out of the team because those guys were scoring goals.
“I concentrated on coaching the youth team that had the OJ‚ Vilakazi ‚Mnguni‚ Jonas Mavimbela players and those guys. They ended up playing for the senior team at Sundowns, that was my team and I was focused on that team.
“I trained that team and I loved it, I fell in love with this coaching thing. But Ted still wanted me on the senior team bench as a player in case he needed a forward.
“Now I’m on the bench with the old man as an assistant and we discuss things. The senior team was training earlier in the day and the youngsters would come later and we worked around our programs. “
Mosimane said he learned a lot from Dumitru, who liked his teams to maintain possession of the ball and was also influenced by José Mourinho at Chelsea.
“Ted liked good football and you know he doesn’t like long balls. I just followed it [Ted] to be honest and gave me the platform. Once a week, the youth played against the senior team and he became a problem with the fight and I said he could do his thing.
“It was during the Peter Koutroulis and Natasha Tsichlas era and they had another First Division team in Mamelodi facing relegation. Michael Manzini used to play for that team and after we saved him from relegation I came back.
“The team that inspired me the most was Mourinho’s Chelsea, that team of Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. It was an incredible team, I fell in love with that team and followed it a lot with a lot of tactics.
“Then I became too curious, when I saw Mourinho lift trophies, I said that I think I want that.”
Mnguni, who went on to play in the UEFA Champions League with Lokomotiv Moscow and Rostov FC in Russia and with Bafana Bafana, said he is not surprised that Mosimane has achieved unprecedented success.
“I’m not surprised that he accomplished so much because when he was training us all those years ago, you could see that he had a vision and a mission. He gave us a good base as players and during my playing days you could see that my base came from a good coach, ”he said.
“He is like Sir Alex Ferguson because he will be staying a long time at Sundowns. I just hope that people aren’t jealous of his success and want to sabotage him. I wish him the best because our club still needs him ”.
