Club World Cup: Al Ahly's faith in 'humble' Pitso Mosimane pays off as prospect of Bayern Munich tie looms

South African coach has been revelation at the Egyptian giants and he must guide his team past tournament hosts Al Duhail to set up a showdown with the European champions

The Club World Cup is designed to celebrate football’s great variety. In the 17th edition, beginning in Doha on Thursday, it is the coaches who arrive with the broadest range of backstories, and in one or two cases, some unlikely routes to the Fifa showpiece.

The favourites? They are guided by a manager, Hansi Flick, who 15 months ago had never been head coach of any team in a top division. By August, he had led Bayern Munich to a Treble.

Flick will on Thursday evening discover whether his opposite number in Monday’s semi-final is to be Sabri Lamouchi, in charge of Al Duhail since October, from the host nation, or Pitso Mosimane, four months into his tenure at Africa’s champions, Al Ahly.

Lamouchi, the former France international, has moved a long distance since July, when in a surreal 20 minutes, he watched his Nottingham Forest squander a possible ticket into the English Premier League.

Mosimane has, meanwhile, taken an unexplored journey of 9,000 miles, from near Pretoria to lend his expertise to the Cairo giants.

He has had an even more garlanded 15 months than Flick. He arrived at Al Ahly in October, in time to wrap up the Egyptian Premier League, seize the domestic Cup, and to guide the now nine-time African club champions into the Caf Champions League final, where they beat fierce city rivals Zamalek. That’s just the half of it.

Mosimane had been headhunted from Sundowns, from his native South Africa, where he had already won a domestic Treble in 2019-20.

But ‘Jingles’ Mosimane, as he is known, has done more than simply pile up an extraordinary collection of silverware in an out-of-the-ordinary year. By moving to the most celebrated club in the Middle East, he has broken the mould.

In over a century, Al Ahly had never before employed a coach from sub-Saharan Africa. They have entrusted the huge pressures of the job to dozens of Europeans, to several inspiring Egyptians. But a club seeking to command Africa, where their most prestigious prizes are pursued, had not looked south – not until Mosimane’s candidacy became absolutely compelling.

Just over four years ago, Mosimane won the first of his two African Champions League titles as a coach, making history with Sundowns, only the second South African winners. He also has five domestic league titles to his name from his eight years with well-funded, easy-on-the-eye Sundowns.

Mosimane, 56, appreciates the appointment at Al Ahly means he is regarded as a pioneer. "I come from humble beginnings, from the township" he told reporters ahead of the Club World Cup. "I want to be able to say to a township boy now 'It is possible'." He quoted his most famous compatriot: "Nelson Mandela said, 'Things are impossible until someone does them.'"

Mosimane grew up in a South Africa were Mandela was in prison, and the discriminatory system of apartheid privileged a white minority.

It also left South Africa shunned and isolated, so there were huge hurdles for a talented striker, as Mosimane was for Sundowns and Orlando Pirates, to attract overseas attention. But he did, playing in Greece, Belgium and in the Gulf. He also won caps for the South Africa national team once, with Mandela released and steering the country towards democracy, it was allowed to compete internationally.

Mosimane later coached the national team – with less success than he has had managing clubs. His spell in charge of South Africa, alas, tends to be remembered for a very costly 45 minutes.

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Gallery: Al Ahly beat Zamalek in Caf Champions League final

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He, his players and his bosses all believed his team needed a draw at home to Sierra Leone to reach the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. They played for a goalless 0-0 in the second half. They had not read the tournament regulations, and believed goal-difference, which South Africa had in their favour, rather than head-to-head tie-breakers, which they did not, would decide who went through from a tight group.

Mosimane, 56, bounced back from that embarrassment. Al Duhail’s Lamouchi hopes to put behind him the most damaging second-half of his managerial career.

The former Ivory Coast and Rennes coach will long be haunted by what happened to Forest on the last day of a season where he had kept them in the Championship’s top six for more than 200 days.

Going into the last match, they required a point to make the play-offs or simply to avoid a five-goal swing in goal-difference.

With less than 20 minutes left, at home to Stoke City, they turned a 1-1 stalemate into a 4-1 loss, heavy enough, combined with results elsewhere, to abruptly end their promotion bid. Lamouchi survived in the job, but only until October, when he headed to the Gulf to turn a new page.

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Gallery: Liverpool win 2019 Club World Cup