Pitso Mosimane: Bafana Bafana Coach, Sundowns Titles and Al Ahly's Two African Crowns

Pitso Mosimane is back at a job where, News24 reported, he feels he has unfinished business. The 62-year-old is head coach of South Africa’s national team for the second time, and this week his name was searched more than 200 times a day in South Africa after he named a 38-man preliminary squad for two Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Kenya.

This profile follows Mosimane from a township in Gauteng to a Greek league title as a player, five league titles at Mamelodi Sundowns, two African crowns with Al Ahly, and the national job he first held in 2010.

Quick facts

Full name: Pitso John Hamilton Mosimane
Born: 26 July 1964, Kagiso, Gauteng, South Africa
Role: Head coach of South Africa (Bafana Bafana), unveiled 1 September 2026
Playing career: Midfielder at Jomo Cosmos, Mamelodi Sundowns, Ionikos (Greece), Rita Berlaar (Belgium) and Al Sadd (Qatar)
International playing record: 4 caps and 1 goal for South Africa, 1993 and 1994
Coaching clubs: SuperSport United, Mamelodi Sundowns, Al Ahly, Al-Ahli, Al Wahda, Abha, Esteghlal
Major honours as coach: CAF Champions League (2016, 2020, 2021), five South African league titles, CAF Coach of the Year (2016)

From Kagiso to Europe as a player

Mosimane was born in Kagiso, west of Johannesburg, and began his senior career in the early 1980s at Jomo Cosmos. He had two spells there and one at Mamelodi Sundowns, then spent a short time on the books of Orlando Pirates before moving abroad in 1989.

His longest stretch overseas came at Ionikos in Greece, where he played until 1995. The club won the Greek second division in 1993-94, a title that appears on his playing record. He then had a season with KFC Rita Berlaar in Belgium and a short spell at Al Sadd in Qatar. He also won four caps for South Africa in the years just after the country returned to international football, scoring once.

It was in Belgium that he first got involved in coaching, helping with the club’s under-11 players. He has said the late coach Ted Dumitru inspired him to go into coaching.

SuperSport United and the first Bafana job

Back in South Africa he worked with the Sundowns reserves before joining SuperSport United as an assistant to Bruce Grobbelaar. In 2001 he took over as head coach and stayed for about five years. SuperSport finished second in the league in 2001-02 and again in 2002-03, and won the Nedbank Cup in 2005.

In 2007 he was caretaker coach of the national team for seven games before the arrival of Carlos Alberto Parreira. Mosimane stayed on as an assistant, and he also worked under Joel Santana at the 2009 Confederations Cup and under Parreira at the 2010 World Cup that South Africa hosted. In July 2010 he was named full-time Bafana Bafana coach on a four-year deal and won his first match, 1-0 against Ghana.

That first spell ended in June 2012 without a place at the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. South Africa missed out after a draw against Sierra Leone in October 2011, in a game where the team was reported to have misunderstood what result it needed. News24 later described him as having left the post “under a cloud”.

Mamelodi Sundowns: the league titles and a continental crown

Mosimane took over at Mamelodi Sundowns in December 2012, and the eight years that followed are the core of his reputation at home. Sundowns won the league five times under him, in 2013-14, 2015-16, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. They also took the Nedbank Cup in 2015 and 2020 and the Telkom Knockout in 2015 and 2019.

The biggest result came in 2016, when Sundowns beat Zamalek of Egypt 3-1 on aggregate in the CAF Champions League final. They were the second South African club to win the competition, after Orlando Pirates in 1995. They added the CAF Super Cup in 2017. In early 2017 Mosimane was named CAF Coach of the Year, and the International Federation of Football History and Statistics ranked him tenth in its coach list for 2016.

He resigned from Sundowns at the end of September 2020 and was announced as Al Ahly’s coach the same day.

Al Ahly and two more African titles

He was the first African coach from outside Egypt to manage Al Ahly. The results came quickly. In November 2020, two months after joining, he won the Champions League final against Zamalek. He followed it with the Egyptian Cup in December 2020, and the club finished third at the Club World Cup in February 2021, beating Palmeiras on penalties in the third-place match.

In July 2021 Al Ahly won the Champions League again, beating Kaizer Chiefs 3-0 in the final in Casablanca, their tenth continental title. Al Ahly also won the CAF Super Cup in May and December 2021. In June 2022 Al Ahly accepted his request to step down.

The years abroad after Egypt

His career since 2022 has been a run of short stints. He took over Al-Ahli in Jeddah in September 2022 and helped the club win promotion from the Saudi second division, then left in June 2023. He said at the time that he and his staff had not been paid since January. Al Wahda in Abu Dhabi signed him later that month, and the two sides parted by mutual consent in November 2023. A short contract at Abha in Saudi Arabia ran from January to the end of the 2023-24 season.

In October 2024 he became coach of Esteghlal in Tehran, and left in January 2025. In August 2024 the University of Johannesburg gave him an honorary doctorate for his contribution to sport and leadership.

The return to Bafana Bafana

Hugo Broos’s five-year contract ended on 31 July 2026, after he led South Africa to third place at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations and to the last 32 at this year’s World Cup, the first time the team had reached a World Cup knockout round. The South African Football Association’s executive committee approved Mosimane’s appointment on 8 August. ESPN and Al Jazeera reported that it then took until 1 September to finalise the deal, with reports of a delay over his pay package. BBC Sport said the length of the contract had not been announced.

He had only 23 days before the first 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier, at home to Guinea on 26 September. South Africa won 2-1, with goals from Ime Okon and Samukele Kabini. On 30 September, in Cairo, they beat Eritrea 5-0, with Relebohile Mofokeng scoring twice. On 4 October they beat Egypt 1-0 in a friendly in Cairo with a heavily rotated side, Puso Dithejane scoring on his debut. That makes three wins from three, and South Africa top Group D.

Why he is trending now

The search spike follows the preliminary squad for November’s double-header against Kenya, which is coached by Benni McCarthy, South Africa’s all-time leading scorer. The first match is on 13 November at Orlando Stadium and the second is four days later in Nairobi. TimesLIVE reported that he had recalled Mbekezeli Mbokazi, Thalente Mbatha, Lebohang Maboe and Luke le Roux, and included Thakasani Mbanjwa, Aden McCarthy, Nkosikhona Radebe, Devin Titus, Boitumelo Radiopane and Nqaba Xulu. Evidence Makgopa was not selected.

Daily Maverick noted that Mosimane has said publicly that he lacks a clinical striker, while he has a surplus of young centre-backs, including Mbokazi, Okon and Olwethu Makhanya. The paper quoted him saying the squad needs to “stack” its options.

Coaching style and reputation

South African commentators often describe Mosimane as the most successful coach in the country’s league history, a view that rests on the five titles at Sundowns and the clean sweep of domestic trophies he completed there by 2016. Rory Smith of The New York Times wrote in January 2022 that his eight months at Al Ahly, with three trophies, made him one of the best managers in the world that year. His critics point to the short spells since 2022 and to his departure from the first national-team job without a continental tournament place.

Career timeline

1982: Begins his senior career at Jomo Cosmos.
1989-1995: Plays for Ionikos in Greece; wins the second-division title in 1993-94.
2001-2006: Head coach at SuperSport United; Nedbank Cup in 2005.
2010-2012: First spell as South Africa head coach.
2012-2020: Sundowns: five league titles and the 2016 CAF Champions League.
2020-2022: Al Ahly: two more Champions League titles.
2022-2025: Short spells at Al-Ahli, Al Wahda, Abha and Esteghlal.
2026: Reappointed Bafana Bafana coach; three wins from three.

What we could not verify

The length and exact terms of his Bafana Bafana contract. Al Jazeera reported that it runs to the 2030 World Cup, but BBC Sport said the length had not been announced.
Whether Mbekezeli Mbokazi will be available in November. TimesLIVE’s photo caption said he was out for the rest of the year, while its article text said he had been recalled.
The final squad for the Kenya matches, which will be cut down from the preliminary list.
The reasons why his stints at Al Wahda and Esteghlal ended, which were reported differently by different outlets.
His salary or wealth, which we do not publish.

Sources

TimesLIVE
Daily Maverick
News24
BBC Sport
ESPN
Al Jazeera
FIFA
Confederation of African Football
Business Report
Wikipedia