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JOHANNESBURG. — Even before he won the CAF Champions League title with Mamelodi Sundowns in 2016, Al Ahly coach Pitso Mosimane had always made clear his ambitions of plying his trade abroad.

As a player, Mosimane’s career took him to foreign lands such as Greece and Qatar, and as a coach, he’s always seemingly been a step ahead of many of his colleagues in the South African Premier Soccer League with his global knowledge and outlook on the game.

While African footballers have increasingly made the grade at some of Europe’s biggest clubs over the past 10 to 15 years, very few African coaches have had opportunities. There have been numerous interviews with Mosimane over the years where he has referenced this disparity, including these quotes from 2010:

“(Europeans) come to Africa and produce their qualification and work, but we can’t reverse the system and go there and work because we don’t have the necessary qualifications,” he said.

“Some of the big teams and national teams in Africa are coached by Europeans with the big licence that we as Africans don’t have. You see how unfair that is.”

Mosimane has also on a number of occasions talked of the importance of players furthering their careers abroad.

With huge respect to Africa’s most successful club, one has to imagine that coaching in Egypt is not Mosimane’s end game, that he would like to see himself on the biggest club stage, the Champions League in Europe.

And having already won the treble with Al Ahly — as the club’s first-ever black coach, and with two Caf Champions League titles to his credit, there is not a whole lot more for Mosimane to achieve on this continent.

Just over four years ago, after winning the Champions League with Sundowns, he was ranked as the 10th best coach in the world for 2016, according to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics.

Add to that his record-breaking five league titles in South Africa and his latest achievements in Egypt, and the 56-year-old has a remarkable CV.

But perhaps what could really open doors for Mosimane and what would certainly thrust him into the limelight is if he can perform on the international stage.

And the Club World Cup semi-final, today, against one of football’s biggest giants, Bayern Munich, offers him exactly that.

It’s the kind of challenge he would have been dreaming about for a long time, to test his managerial skills against the world’s best, while representing South Africa, Africa and black coaches with pride.

Self-belief, ambition and the hunger to break down barriers can make for a powerful mix and these are characteristics which Mosimane seems to have in abundance.

It’s therefore fitting that he looks to former South African president Nelson Mandela for inspiration.

“Have you ever thought, in our time, that South Africa can have a black president as Nelson Mandela?” said the former Bafana Bafana coach in an interview with CNN. “That is an amazing story.”

“Can you believe that somebody from the township like me, from the background of apartheid, from the humble beginnings, can be the first person to win the Champions League in South Africa? And win it twice and become coach of the year on the continent?”

Despite his ambitions, Mosimane feels the odds are stacked against him, but as he downplays his own chances, one still gets the sense that he would love to be the one to break the status quo.

“We have to be realistic to say Europe doesn’t have a lot of African coaches,” he said in the same interview with CNN this week.

“I don’t want to politicise this and make it a case of playing the race card, but some things need to be told as they are.

“I mean, you cannot tell me all these big players, African players, who won the Champions League in Europe, who are living there and none of those Africans can have an opportunity to coach.

“Maybe in our children’s generation, things can change,” he continued, “things do change, but first, Europe must accept and give chances to the European-born Africans, before we can talk about getting a chance, so it’s a long way.” — Goal.com