Rulani Mokwena has said that he has to prove himself worthy as Mamelodi Sundowns’ head coach every day that he is in the job.
Mokwena was speaking to the media after Sundowns lost to Esperance in the CAF Champions League semi-finals, ending their hopes of winning the 2023/24 edition of Africa’s main prize.
When queried by iDiski Times about how many clubs around the world have changed coaches after failing to win the Champions League, and whether he feels secure in his role, Mokwena said of course it crosses his mind.
“Does losing my job cross my mind? Yes. It crosses my mind every day,” Mokwena responded at the post-match press conference.
“Every day. I have to prove myself worthy to be the coach of Mamelodi Sundowns every single day. But in responding to your question, I can say to you, two things:
“One is I feel the support of the players, I feel the support of the family that runs this football club, I feel the support of senior management. And that’s important. I feel the support of the staunch Sundowns fans who realise where this club is, as compared to where this club used to be.
“And the difficulties that they have gone through with this club, and how much it means to them to continue to win and to be respected on the African continent.
“Whereas in the past, many teams would come here and would think, ‘Oh it’s easy to play against Sundowns’. And I remember Sundowns losing five-nil in a knockout stage of the Champions League. Gone are those days, teams don’t play against Sundowns whether home or away and play open. And this is something that shows how much we’ve grown as a team and how big we’ve become.
“And I’m proud that today we could even try different things. We could go to the sides more, we could try the double underlap, we could try to put balls in the box. We could try the diagonal dodge, we could try finding the space in the 10s, so I’m happy we could try a lot of different things today and that shows that I’m not so stuck in my ways, I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to try to help this team to win.
“Whether that’s recognised and appreciated is not up to me. What is up to me is to give everything that I can.”