South African coach Rulani Mokwena says he is not fazed by the challenge that lies ahead at Algerian club Mouloudia Club d’Alger.
Mokwena has penned a two-year deal, opening the door for his return to North Africa after his stint at Moroccan club Wydad Casablanca.
The former Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates mentor has acknowledged that North Africa is a volatile environment where coaches come and go, but he remains “optimistic,” as he mentioned in his interview with Metro FM on Monday.
“I’m excited, you know, and I’m looking forward to being out on the pitch, to coaching top players again, and to working under pressure,” said Mokwena.
The 38-year-old further stated the reasons for saying yes to MC Alger after a few rejections from clubs in the Gulf region.
“Well, firstly, MC Alger meets a lot of my personal objectives from a career perspective, and you know, after Wydad, we sat and we had a debrief with my agent (Steve Kapeluschnik), and we analyzed everything,” Mokwena continued.
“We analyzed my mistakes, we analyzed his mistakes, and we analyzed the club’s mistakes. We all felt we could have won when we went to Wydad, you know, and we didn’t win. So, of course, you got to do some debriefing and some introspection, you know, and after that we put together some objectives for my career, and this one (MC Alger) seemed to meet quite a few of those.
“Well, Champions League (football); a team with some of the best players already, a team that’s competing at a very aggressive level from a domestic perspective, the fans—they are known as the Chinese, they are incredible. They support the club, and they are extremely passionate about their club, the president and the people that I’ve spoken to seem to be good people, and just from a trajectory perspective, you know,” stated the Soweto-born mentor.
“If you move from Sundowns and you go to Wydad, which is tougher than Sundowns and is a different challenge, you are expecting to grow and be challenged by something even more difficult than the Wydad challenge, and there’s not a lot out there because the motivation, certainly, is not money or fame or anything like that; it’s a passion for football, which is why at the end, you know, I said to the people close to me that, actually, I’m not going to take a sabbatical. Because when the offer came, I was very close to saying, ‘I’d take some time off. I’d take a season, and I’d travel a little bit’, and they were laughing because I said to them, ‘I’ll actually have more fun in Algeria, even if it lasts for six months, than I’d have fun sitting at home’.”
Mokwena has roped in Belgian coach Enzo Donis as one of his assistants. Donis, 29, has agreed to leave his job as Togo national team assistant coach to join Mokwena in Algeria.
Further additions to the technical team include South Africans Wendell Robinson as goalkeeper coach and Sibusiso Mahlangu as a fitness coach, while MC Alger will retain some of the Algerians in the team, which breeds familiarity, according to Mokwena.
