Decorated South African coach Pitso Mosimane spearheaded a successful first inaugural Pitso Mosimane Soccer Schools (PMSS) sports festival held at the Curro Meridian Cosmo City in Roodepoort.
The five-day festival came to an exciting conclusion on Saturday as the last standing teams across the various age groups battled it out on the final day.
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Mosimane was present on the day and on hand to award medals to the winning teams.
"You've been here. You've been watching. Did you see the winning goal? Did you see how the kids came [to celebrate] That's living my dream," Mosimane said.
"The passion, the energy, to bring these children here on a Saturday and [bring] parents here and the support. To play football, not for the elite, not for the top talented but for all the children at school to play football and out of this we (South African football) get something."
"Being at the schools is the best thing ever. If you go to the football club's how may children are there? 15 for the under-12s? and what about the late bloomers, late developers and also we don't do 'top talent', we have mass participation," the coach added.
"Yes if there is top talent, we put it a little bit on the side and see how it goes, but the base, the infrastructure is mass participation."
The initiative is the brainchild of Mosimane, who has teamed up with independent school Curro, to kick-start the PMSS. Curro Meridian Cosmo City in Roodepoort is one of two centres for the programme.
"I feel excited and honoured, I feel really proud because we have worked on this programme for quite some time," said Maud Langa the school's executive head added.
"It took months of planning, days and hours to ensure that event goes smoothly. When we started, we never envisioned that in the sixth month, PMSS and Curro could be hosting a sports festival."
Mosimane expressed a desire to stretch out the programme to other provinces and has called on potential sponsors to get in touch with the PMSS.
The three-time CAF Champions League winner is off to the UAE where he will take over the reins at Al Wahda.
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