Pitso's Soccer School to partner with Curro

The PMSS and Curro Schools will be joining forces and the project is set to get underway in February 2023, with their quest to “Create the Player of Tomorrow.”

The former Bafana Bafana, Mamelodi Sundowns, and Al Ahly head coach, who is now coaching Saudi Arabia club Ahl Ahli Saudi, has always had this dream of starting a project that will shake football development in the country. 

Speaking to SABC Sport earlier this year, Mosimane shared how he would like to see PMSS following the model of the Football Right to Dream project in Ghana, which produced a player like Ajax Amsterdam’s Kudus Mohammed – scorer of a brace for the Black Stars during their 3-2 win over South Korea in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar earlier this week. 

“Look at the model of KNVB, look at the model of DFB – I have both of them [coaching qualifications], and these are the two models that are my foundation for this project and this is how I’m going to train my coaches,” explained the three-time African continental club champion.

“This is the model I have shared with the gurus. I gave this to Arsene Wenger, who is now the FIFA Chief of Global Football Development, and I told him what I’m doing and also asked for his input.”

Part of Mosimane’s inspiration to go this route stems from his time as the Bafana Bafana head coach from 2010 to 2012, where he constantly complained about players lacking basics that they should have learned at junior levels.

The partnership between PMSS and Curro will see two schools in Gauteng and Limpopo kicking off the project, which will also be focused on the two lower tiers of Curro. 

PMSS will also have links with other schools outside Curro that would form part of their mass participation programme, from which they will then select the most talented players. 

According to a source with knowledge of how PMSS is going to operate, the big end goal is to have boarding schools with Curro, where the kids will study and also play football – similar to how the Transnet School of Excellence operates.

The model will see Curro take care of the academic side while PMSS run the football component, with accredited coaches holding a minimum CAF D License and who have been trained through the PMSS way of doing things. 

“The principles are to develop the coaches and put them at the schools. All the children who play football are at school, you can never miss them. And that’s where I think the big pool is,” Mosimane elaborated earlier in the year.

“The most important thing for me is to focus on schools, and hopefully we will be able to produce a [Steven] Pienaar, a Benni [McCarthy], a [Thulani] Serero – they all come from schools, and some from the School of Excellence model that worked.

“So, I’m trying to copy those models, and try and give the children the opportunity to play because, frankly, some academies are not doing enough. But through this PMSS, our players will receive enough schooling and training.

“From all these schools that we will be having links to, we will have kids who get proper scholarships to go to a Curro-PMSS boarding school, everybody will be there on the bursary, more like an academy.”

The record five-time South African premier league-winning coach is also expected to join the launch virtually from the Gulf region.