Pitso Mosimane has revealed it is his big dream to create a soccer school, where future Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana players can be formed.
The South African tactician, who is currently without a club after leaving Al Ahli Saudi FC was on home soil on Saturday for the official media launch of the Pitso Mosimane Soccer School (PMSS) programme.
During the lunch, Mosimane his team received supportive words from the Gauteng MEC of Education, Mr Matome Chiloane, Premier of Gauteng, Mr Panyaza Lesufi, and South African Football Association (SAFA) Technical Director, Walter Steenbok.
As part of the official launch, Mosimane thanked various stakeholders who are supporting his efforts to create the “player of tomorrow” and also revealed his ultimate dream for PMSS.
“I was discovered from school, I was recruited from professional football from the game they saw me at school,” he said.
“The quality that is needed from South Africa to make it at the highest level starts from the school.
“We all know, if you want rugby boys, which schools will give us that, we know also from cricket, also schools will give us them.
“My dream is to have a football school in South Africa. PMSS is about mastering the ball at an early age, age-specific training, proper development structures.
“The difference at PMSS is, first we are mass participation we give everybody a chance to play and I’ll tell you why – I never played at clubs when I was young, I played at schools.
“The ultimate [target] for PMSS is to have a football school – a school that is academically proper balanced like all the other schools for our school, but also a school that is specialised in football.
“That’s where we going to get Bafana players, that’s where we going to get Banyana players.”
During the illustrious launch event, Mosimane and his team also revealed the official PMSS Kit, which was launched as part of coach Pitso Mosimane’s very own sportswear brand, which was designed by #DressThePlayerofTomorrow social media competition winner, Matome Rasealea, in 2022.
With the PMSS programme already in action at two Curro Schools: Meridian Cosmo City and Northern Academy, and in three PMSS locations in Midrand, Boksburg and North Riding, PMSS aims to take South African youth football development by storm.
PMSS caters for boys and girls between the ages of 6 years and 13 years. This strategy is in line with the PMSS objective, which is to “Create the Player of Tomorrow”, starting the player development journey at grass roots level, as confirmed by MT Sports Managing Director, Moira Tlhagale.
“We as MT Sports we manage coach Pitso Mosimane and he had shared with us his vision to create ‘a player of tomorrow’. It’s more about us partnering with the schools and only training the children in the schools,” she explained.
“The independent model is about us training in a facility that any child can come in. We are focussing on an U7 child – six, turning seven, in the next 10 years.
“He would like to see some girls and boys from this program forming part of the nations teams.”
Story by David Kappel (@kappilinho).
