Siyanda Zwane has revealed how Pitso Mosimane taught him a lesson on his first day at training with Mamelodi Sundowns after he came with just one pair of soccer boots.
According to Zwane, who joined Sundowns ahead of the 2014/15 season from Golden Arrows, he came with just one pair of boots and then he encountered a problem as they were hurting him.
Because at Arrows he would get away with it and the coaches would tell him to go home and see him the next day – but to his surprise at Sundowns, it was not the case.
“The first day I arrived at Sundowns training, I came with one pair of boots and they had mixed studs. On my first training session, the double studs came out and the training was so intense – 11v11,” revealed Zwane.
“So I was twisting and turning. So when the studs came out, I’m not running properly and I hurt my ankle. Then I went to coach Pitso Mosimane, ‘coach, I have a problem, my boots are giving me problem’.
“Pitso said, ‘wait, stop the training, come here, come here’. He called me in front of everyone and he said ‘tell them what is going on’. I told the guys that I have a problem with my boots.
“He said ‘here, this is not Golden Arrows, here we are not playing to avoid relegation. Here we win cups. You are a professional – you carry two boots, what car were you driving back then?’
“I told him and he said ‘what car are you driving now? See the difference. You are no longer at Arrows, here we are winning cups, no player comes to me and gives me that excuse; can’t finish the training when we are paying you well because you have an issue with the boots? How do you come with one pair of boots?’
“I was used to come to training with one pair of boots at Arrows and when I had a problem I would go home and the coaches there would say, ‘it’s okay, we will continue tomorrow’.
“At Arrows there is no player that would carry two boots. At Sundowns, you carry two boots or three, so that even if the weather changes, you can quickly go and change and wear boots that suit the weather and we would train until a rain stops or we finish training.”
Zwane went on to explain how professional the whole setup at Chloorkop was, with players literally spending the whole day at the club.
“At Sundowns, you report from 8am until the afternoon,” he added.
“You would account for your performances. Coach Pitso said each player must buy his own iPad and DStv, you can’t just fit anywhere because you are brought on a specific task.
“I would come at 8am until later in the afternoon because Pitso was trying to ensure that we ate the right food and there was no Drive Thrus. These are the small things that make Sundowns the difference to other teams.
“I don’t think there is a team that spends so much time on technicalities like Sundowns, they pay too much attention to details. You would watch something from Manchester City and tomorrow you are going to train it in the same way until you perfect it.
“They would give you the opponent’s strengths – how they play, go home and study. I never experienced anything like that before.”
