Wydad Casablanca head coach Rulani Mokwena reacts on the touchline during his time with Mamelodi Sundowns FILE - Wydad Casablanca head coach Rulani Mokwena reacts on the touchline during his time with Mamelodi Sundowns. Photo: Khaled Desouki/AFP
Wydad Casablanca head coach Rulani Mokwena has opened up about what former Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp said to him when he visited the Merseyside club.
The 37-year-old Mokwena left Mamelodi Sundowns at the end of last season, and was snapped up by the Moroccan giants soon after.
Speaking to Forbes Africa recently, Mokwena revealed the words of wisdom he received from Klopp.
“Klopp said to me, ‘know just enough as a head coach not to be bulls**ted, so that people don’t pull wool over your eyes’,” Mokwena said about his chat with the German.
This is some team talk from Rulani Mokwena 🤨
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Mokwena, who describes himself as a “deep thinker”, and never played the game at a professional level, said his mother was encouraged by his school teachers to push him towards medicine or law, but he was dead set on becoming a football coach.
“At my Matric farewell, I remember a teacher telling my mother, ‘your son has surpassed our expectations in terms of who he arrived (at the school) as and who he is leaving as’.
“They told her she should push me to study to be a doctor or a lawyer because it would be a waste if I did anything other than that. But I had already set my mind on sport science and becoming a football coach.
“I was 18 when I left high school but had already been a coach for four years.”
Mokwena also spoke about some of his interesting training techniques, including putting GoPro cameras on his players during sessions.
“In training sessions, I have had the players wear GoPro cameras so that I can see what they see. I put certain demands on them, and I see whether they think about the rules and the action they have to take,” he continued.
“You get to see how many scans (of the pitch) certain players do in a period of time. A player like (Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder) Rivaldo Coetzee scans four or five times in 15 to 20 seconds before he receives the ball. That allows him to make the right decision almost every single time.
“The best players in the world don’t think about their actions, their brain just executes, because they have done these things over and over. The motor mechanics in the brain have been developed. They can comfortably perform even the most difficult tasks.”
IOL Sport
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