Mosimane brewing a ‘more effective’ Sundowns at Chloorkop

“Jingles” has always preached about a succession plan at the Chloorkop-based side and it is evident in the nature of his recent recruits.

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Starting from the goalkeeping department, Sundowns average an age of 31 and that is thanks to youngster Abram Ngcobo (24) for bringing down the average as Reyaad Pieterse is 28 while Denis Onyango and Kennedy Mweene are both 35 years old.

Mosimane has brought in Ricardo Goss (26) and Jody February (24) in what is a clear anticipation of Onyango and Mweene’s retirement. Even though it is said that goalkeepers age like wine, but they will, at some point, have to hang up their gloves.

“I have the vision of the club given to me by the board and the chairman of the board, Patrice Motsepe who is the president of the club. I drive the vision, that’s my job. I need to advise the team on what’s been happening for the last seven years and we can see that there is a synergy and we can see that there is a good vision of always trying to make sure that we replace players,” said Mosimane.

Mosimane, however, is of the view that his succession plan is not only premised on the age of players, but it has a lot to do with finding the right quality to inherit a place in his team.

“It is not about the age, it has been about the Katlego Mphelas, Esrom Nyandoro, Teko Modise, Elias Pelembe, Aljie Schutte, Suprise Moriri, and all those big players. We always had to have a succession plan and all the time we have been huffing and puffing, stumbling and not really coming out easily after replacing important players,” said Mosimane.

“What is more important than just acquiring players and bringing them to Sundowns is replacing them with the right players. Now we have a generation of the Keletso Makgalwa, Sphelele Mkhulise, Gaston Sirino, Themba Zwane is still around, Mosa Lebusa is coming in, Lyle Lakay creeping in at left-back. Nicholus Lukhubeni and Thapelo Morena are also coming in. We are getting there slowly and it is not easy.

“We have moved from generations to generations. We have now moved from the generation of the CBD, the Bongani Zungus, the Ramahlwe Mphahlele, Thabo Nthethe and others. My job is to make sure that we replace those players because the level of expatiation from the team does not come down and that has been the biggest part of our technical team, to make sure that it happens,” he added.

Downs have recruited players like Lesedi Kapinga, Grant Margerman, Mothobi Mvala, Peter Shalulile and George Maluleka, who is the only player over the age of 30 in this season’s recruit trail.

“The team that we are trying to create now might be more effective and less glamorous as this one. This one can pass the ball. The difficult part is that whilst we are replacing the players is to keep winning and it’s not easy.

“We lost the “CBD” (acronym for Leonardo Castro, Khama Billiat and Keagan Dolly) and that team scored 55 goals and had 71 points. Out of 30 games I think they won 23… that’s huge, what a team. They won the Champions League and it was a treble that had the league, the Telkom Knockout and the Champions League and to add the cherry on top, they added the Super Cup and went to the Club World Cup, what an amazing team we had.

“To get there again is like talking about the Galaticos of Real Madrid, the Barcelona of Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Lionel Messi, and David Villa… what a team. We don’t have that team anymore,” Mosimane concluded.

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