Ahly coach Mosimane: Historic second World Cup bronze was special

Al Ahly coach Pitso Mosimane says his second bronze medal won at the Fifa Club World Cup was the “ special” one.

Mosimane became the first African coach, and Ahly the first club from the continent, to win back-to-back bronze medals at Fifa's premier club competition with their 4-0 destruction of Al-Hilal in Saturday’s playoff in Abu Dhabi.

In the Covid-19-delayed 2020 edition in Qatar, Ahly lost 2-0 to an awe-inspiring Bayern Munich in the semifinals and beat Brazil's Palmeiras in the third-place playoff.

In the 2021 tournament, Ahly worked against the odds to record a 1-0 win against Mexico's Monterrey in the second round, 2-0 defeat to Palmeiras in the semis, and their thrashing of strong Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal.

In the build-up Ahly missed their Egypt international stars for a month at the Fifa Arab Cup in December. Fifa's scheduling clash with the Africa Cup of Nations final in Cameroon denied the Cairo giants their Pharaohs stars in the Club World Cup opener against Monterrey and they returned too tired to make an impact against Palmeiras.

Mosimane told a press conference of the SA Football Journalists' Association on Wednesday that the situation where African teams are prejudiced at the Club World Cup, starting matches earlier than European and South American teams, was similar to him being controversially overlooked for Fifa's 2021 coach of the year award shortlist. He said if the criteria was for coaches from better-resourced leagues and teams to be preferred in the award that needed to be made clear.

“That's what I don't really appreciate — what is the criteria? The same goes for the Club World Cup — if we know what the criteria are then it's OK. Then there's no politics, we can't be saying things.

“Because a coach was saying, 'But we have played many games, we have accumulated injuries and bookings. The opposition come with a clean sheet, we already have three yellow cards'.

“At least cancel the yellow cards when you meet teams with a clean sheet. You can't do a 100m and you start 50m ahead and I must try to win against you. Of course I'm going to lose.”

Ahly's Club World Cup campaign was made more challenging by the scheduling clash.

“And it's all about Caf and Fifa and communications with each other. They sit together, these powerhouses, but what you get out of it is everything overlaps,” Mosimane said.

“I mean, didn't we know when the Afcon was, when the Club World Cup was? Didn't we know when the first games of the Caf Champions League were?

“Ahly haven't played — we're starting this week [behind other clubs in the 2021-2022 Champions League group stage] because we were busy with the World Cup. Everything is not aligned.

“So Africa needs support, Africa needs help. I don't want to go too much into that because it starts to be politics, but it affects us, it affects me.

“I never saw my players for two months. Nine went to the Arab Cup, and when they came back I had one training session with them and then we played the Caf Super Cup.

“You could see my team struggling against Raja Casablanca in the Super Cup — we won with penalties.

“The next day those players are gone to Afcon. I don't see them for one month again.

“They come one-and-a-half days before the second game of the Club World Cup. The odds are against us.

“Everybody in the semifinals had their teams. Palmeiras were there for six days, they were resting, training properly, building up, no players injured.

“I'm receiving players who spent a month at the Arab Cup, another month in Cameroon. The output is not going to be the same.

“That's why I say this bronze medal was very special for me.”

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