Mokwena not ‘asking for eight years’ to win Champions League
"This is my second season if you want to call it that and we have done back-to-back semifinals," Mokwena said.
Rulani Mokwena, coach of Mamelodi Sundowns during a CAF Champions League press conference (Mehrez Toujani/BackpagePix)
With all the talk that it would be a failure if Mamelodi Sundowns don’t reach the Caf Champions League final, Rulani Mokwena has made comparisons between his time as a head coach and that of his predecessor Pitso Mosimane.
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Mokwena who was one of the assistant coaches to Mosimane the last time Sundowns lifted the continental club competition eight years ago went on a rant about the difficulty of taking the club to the promised land.
The 37-year-old has a difficult task of overturning the 1-0 deficit from the first leg of the semifinal against Esperance.
The must-win return leg against the North Africans takes place at Loftus Versfeld on Friday with the winner set to play either Al-Ahly or TP Mazembe in the final.
“I look at the Champions League with a different perspective because I’ve been here before. I was an assistant coach to the previous coach (Pitso Mosimane) for a very long time. The previous coach was here for eight years and he had eight years to try to win the Champions League and we only won the Champions League once,” Mokwena pointed out.
“We only played in the semifinals of the Champions League twice because the other year we got to the final. In eight years under the previous coach we played the semifinals twice and won it once.
“This is my second season if you want to call it that and we have done back-to-back semifinals already and sometimes I have a feeling that people don’t appreciate that.
“You have to go to a team like Manchester City for example where they lost to a team like Real Madrid. With all the investments at Manchester City and the players, Pep Guardiola has only won the Champions League once in 12 years.
“It’s called the Champions League because it’s the league of champions. Of course the level is going to be higher and the margin for error will be small.”
Although Mokwena is hopeful of getting past Esperance in front of their home fans, he pleaded for more time to turn Sundowns into force on the continent suggesting that the 2016 champions are still taking baby steps on the biggest club competition in Africa.
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“When you look at the profile of the teams in the Champions League, there are 21 champions league trophies amongst the last four. There is Al-Ahly with 11, TP Mazembe with five, Esperance with four and then Sundowns with one.
“So what gives us the God-given right to think it’s going to be a walk in the park and win the Champions League and beat Esperance?” he asked. “We have to work hard for it and suffer for it. We have to lose sometimes in the games like we lost away,” Mokwena concluded.
