Al Ahly coach Pitso Mosimane has described the bronze medal he got at the Fifa Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi as the most special one.

Mosimane guided the Egyptian giants to a bronze medal in succession at the Club World Cup and recently, he had to do so mostly with his fringe players. Up to six top Red Devils players were part of the Egypt team which played in the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon until it lost  in the final to Senegal.

In the Fifa Club World Cup, Al Aly hammered Saudi Arabian outfit Al Hilal 4-0 in the third place play-off match to win bronze.

“I never saw my players for two months as they went for the Arab Cup and when they came back, we had one training session with them,” Mosimane explained to the SA Football Journalists Association yesterday.

“And then we played the CAF Super Cup. You could see my team struggling against Raja Casablanca. We won it on penalties.

“I had nine players in the Fifa Arab Cup, they played one match, and the following day they went to the Africa Cup of Nations. I don’t see them for one month again and I had them for one-and-a-half day after coming back from Cameroon to play the second game of the World Cup.

“I mean, we were up against all odds. That’s why I say this medal for me [is special] as much as it is a bronze. This one was very special because I never trained the team."

Mosimane is having an impressive success with the Red Devils after he won CAF Champions League twice in a space of a year.

He also believes that he will never get the chance to coach in Europe after he was not selected for the Coach of the Year award. 

“I had a conversation with Dwight Yorke (Manchester United legend). He told me straight, I was with him and I was with Owen Hargreaves (ex-England and Bayern midfielder) and all those guys,” he said.

“He (Yorke) said, ‘Pitso don’t even think about it. If we have scored so many goals for those teams and we [are] not yet managers when we have badges and qualifications, it’s going to be tough to come over here'.

“And you can see this straight, Europe is not ready for Africans. It’s not how much you can do. It’s a little (lack) of trust and all that, but we are okay.”