New MC Alger head coach Rulani Mokwena has revealed his reasons for joining the Algerian outfit saying the club aligns with most of his personal objectives.
The former Mamelodi Sundowns and Wydad Athletic Club coach was unveiled as the Algerian League 1 champions mentor over the weekend after a season-long stint in the Botola League. Mokwena led Wydad to a third-place finish with 54 points.
The 38-year-old told Andile Ncube on Sports Night Amplified that he reflected with his agent on what happened in Morocco and how Alger also makes sense looking at how he wants to be challenged in his career.
Mokwena counted among the factors playing CAF Champions League football, the type of players at the club and generally people associated with the club being good as the biggest reasons for him to sign on the dotted line.
“It meets a lot of my personal objectives from a career perspective,” said Mokwena.
“And after Wydad we sat, and we had a debrief with my agent and we analysed everything. We analysed my mistakes, we analysed his mistakes, we analysed the club’s mistakes because we all felt we could have won when we went to Wydad and then we didn’t win.
“So, of course you’ve got to do some debriefing and some introspection, and after that, we put together some objectives for my career and this one seemed to meet quite a few of those.
“Well a Champions League 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’re incredible. They support the club. 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 if you move from Sundowns, and you go to Wydad which is tougher than Sundowns and is a different challenge you’re 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 the passion for football, which is why at the end 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’ll take some time off, I’ll take a season, and I’ll 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. And then I’ll have fun sitting at home.
“So, I think there was a lot of things that were pushed towards going there.”
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