Mamelodi Sundowns co-head coach Rulani Mokwena has admitted that Stuart Baxter is one of his role models and he has huge respect for the Kaizer Chiefs coach.
Both men took part in a very spirited press conference ahead of the clash between Masandawana and Amakhosi on Sunday.
Among many topics discussed, their relationship also came up and after Baxter clarified that he has no issues with his counterpart, Mokwena explained how deep their relationship goes.
“I’ve got huge respect and admiration for coach Stuart and I think he knows,” he told reporters.
We’ve had a lot of discussions, we’ve had a lot of meetings for breakfast and coffee, to discuss football and at times I’m in awe of the amount of knowledge that goes on beyond football.
“There is a book that coach recommended to me and when you speak to coach Stuart, he started speaking about and educating you about the Martial Arts and how you can find some of these principles from the Martial Arts and incorporate them into football.
“It’s just exemplifying the fact that we have coffee and we talk about Martial Arts. It goes to show that there is a very good feeling between the two of us.
And I think he wouldn’t have asked me to come to Bafana at a certain stage. I mean he was the coach that extended an invite when I was at Pirates and said ‘look I’d love to work with you’ and I don’t think he would’ve done that if the relations were not so good.
“So, huge respect, I look up to him, I admire him, the career he has had and the success that he has achieved. He is one of the people that I take as role models.
“I also have the view of football the same way that he has, in relation to that there is quite a lot that brings us together.”
The match between Downs and Chiefs kicks off at 17:00 at Loftus Versfeld today.
