Former Mamelodi Sundowns coach Rulani Mokwena has provided an update on his progress at Wydad Casablanca, two weeks into his five-week pre-season program.
The South African tactician, who brought along five compatriots to bolster his technical team, expressed satisfaction with the team’s adaptation to his methods.
The backroom staff includes the likes of Alan Freese (assistant coach), Sinethemba Badela (assistant coach), Sean Louw (goalkeeper coach), Sibusiso Mahlangu (fitness coach) and Sibusiso Makitla (analyst).
Mokwena, who left Sundowns unexpectedly last month, has received full backing from Wydad’s management, including support for player recruitment.
With the Botola Pro League just weeks away, Rhulani Mokwena’s reign at Wydad Athletic Club got off to a blistering start as the Moroccan giants demolished Tanzanian outfit Azam FC 4-1 in a pre-season friendly.
During an interview with the club, the 37-year-old highlighted the positive trajectory of the team’s preparations and thanked the club for its support.
“We are in the second week of our five-week program. We are quietly going about our business and trying to put together a strong competitive squad,” said Mokwena.
“I have to give a lot of compliments to the work that has been done behind the scenes by everybody involved in recruiting and bringing in the players, including the technical team. They are doing incredible work.
And of course, I have to give a huge credit to the board, the president of the club, and senior management for acquiring some of the players. This puts us coming into the second week in better shape than we were in the beginning.”
Mokwena continued: “But we still have a lot of work to do. We have to push ourselves to try to get ourselves into good condition. We have certain objectives every week, and we are moving into what would be competitive, where we play a lot of friendly games.
“This will help us to try to get the condition, the personality and the methodology going. And that’s not easy because we have to try to change the personality of the team and try to induct the new players into what we believe would be our way of playing that would bring us a lot of success.
“Also, to make the supporters happy. We just have to continue to focus on that slowly but surely over the next few weeks and get ourselves in good shape.”