Pitso Mosimane ready for next adventure at Saudi Pro League strugglers Abha

From his hotel room in Abha, south-western Saudi Arabia, Pitso Mosimane has been entitled to feel some reflected glory these past few days. In his evenings, with practice and planning for his new job in the Saudi Pro League complete for the day, he’s caught up with the captivating international tournaments that have ushered in the new year.

Both the Africa Cup of Nations and the Asian Cup resonated uniquely with Mosimane. Over in Ivory Coast, he saw players in whose development he played a key role thriving beyond expectation. In Qatar, he watched the changing landscape of Gulf football played out, hierarchies upended, underdogs snapping at the heels of giants.

Mosimane would like a little of that upstart energy in what he calls his “new adventure”, a rescue mission at Abha, a club stuck one place off the foot of the Saudi Pro League, whose calendar resumes after its winter break on Thursday.

Besides the compelling watch Afcon and the Asian Cup provided, there were individual performances that the South African was pleased to observe. The 59-year-old, a CAF Champions League winner three times, twice with Egypt’s Al Ahly, has been a pioneer for African coaching, a conqueror of territories previously out of the reach of men in his profession from south of the Sahara.

Last Sunday night, he watched an African coach celebrate victory at Afcon, Ivory Coast’s Emerse Fae, the caretaker de luxe, maintaining a line of local success in a tournament where a prevailing instinct, over decades, had been to entrust the guidance of national teams to imported managers, mostly from Europe. Fae is a former Ivory Coast player, just as Aliou Cisse, Afcon-winning coach of Senegal two years ago, is an ex Senegal player.

Ditto Djamel Belmadi,