In boxing they say… “and still, the champions of South Africa, Mamelodi Sundowns!”
Yes, the Brazilians made it five league championships in a row, and they didn’t even need to ever get into top gear to do it.
That’s how far ahead Sundowns has been since the start of the campaign. They secured the MTN8 and were prepared when it came to managing their Caf obligations.
They really have been an example that might take a few years for any of the current PSL sides to emulate.
These guys have barely had an off-season. Even when they had days off, former coach Pitso Mosimane was constantly on the phone with them.
I experienced it first-hand when I was with the late Anele Ngcongca. He had to make sure his phone was on all the time. Coach Pitso would text and call the whole day.
Bra Pitso gave his guys homework, so he would constantly be checking up on them and their progress on the tasks he’d given them. They had WhatsApp groups for every department in the team. He was working 24/7.
And it all started with that off-season they went on tour to Namibia and Zambia in 2015. Remember that? A lot of you probably won’t.
Well, those were the building blocks of what you’re seeing now. Bra Pitso was intentional in his plan to take the Brazilians to the next level and bury Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates in the process.
So if anybody in South Africa right now has any intentions of competing against Sundowns, as Bra Pitso would often say “the trophy is here, in Chloorkop, they must come and take it”.
I think the only way is that clubs would have to trust their youth right now so that they can gain the experience needed to flourish as a group or risk going into the global wholesale to get quality that will bring them instant results.
They’d have to strike some major luck like the Brazilians did with Gaston Sirino and Leonardo Castro. But that’s just two of at least 15 if not 20 other recruits that didn’t work.
Can the other PSL clubs afford that? Orlando Pirates are an example of a team that has been able to constantly go to the market for talent, but their deals are not always direct money transfers, there’s often players attached and even “gentlemen’s agreements”.
Is it still called a “gentlemen’s agreement” with Golden Arrows’ owner Mama Mato Madlala?
It’s an open secret that Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund had an arrangement on player transfers. Nothing wrong having those types of arrangements.
Sundowns had it with Ajax Cape Town. The Urban Warriors shipped their players overseas early, if there was no sale, Sundowns would often be offered the player.
I had Cape Town City owner John Comitis on my show Diski Nites tell us about how they did things at Ajax.
He joked: “Our philosophy was clear, give young players a chance to play, then the clubs come knocking and we answer the phone; ‘oh you say it’s Sundowns, well the price (for the player) is seven bar (million).”
It’s been a less than impressive campaign overall from the rest of the teams in the league.It’s been even worse at leadership level.
But more on that at a later stage.
It was to be expected though, in my opinion. Mistakes were obvious, nobody was prepared for Covid and what was to happen next.
Whatever happens, with all the criticism, we can’t look down at the efforts made to get the ball rolling again post-Covid.
As for Downs, they just picked up where they left off and steamrolled their opponents once again to wrap up the title with four games to go.