The champions series: Mamelodi Sundowns u17’s Tiro van Rooyen

With the 2024 Gauteng Development League (GDL) complete, SuperSport Schools Plus explores the journeys of the teams that triumphed this season under the “Champions Series” banner.

This week, Ongama Gcwabe narrates the story of the u17 champions, Mamelodi Sundowns, with the help of head coach, Tiro van Rooyen.

Coaching or playing for Mamelodi Sundowns isn’t child’s play at any level. The pressure and expectations within the club, as well as from the outside, from its millions of supporters, bring about an unprecedented amount of stress.

Under-17 coach Tiro van Rooyen knows that pressure all too well, having been with the Pretoria-based unit for several years.

“To be in the yellow shirt as a player and coach is demanding,” Van Rooyen admitted to SuperSport Schools Plus.

“For the players to do something like this this year has been very good for the academy, and it shows that the academy is one of the best, not just in the country but also in the continent.

“When two divisions win the league, it shows that we’ve got good players, probably the best players in the country, and that we have good coaches.”

However, Van Rooyen, and colleagues, including Selekedi Mogale who coached the Sundowns u15 team to back-to-back league titles this season, ensure the Brazilians turn up and turn out, delivering positive results week after week.

Van Rooyen gave SuperSport Schools further insight into those things that go on behind the scenes at Mamelodi Sundowns, which ensures that the club continues its very successful ways.

“Behind the scenes, the leadership of the academy is working very hard to get the best players and helping us technically. We meet every day around 12:00 to prepare training sessions. We have strategy meeting. We have match reports after every weekend and that helps us for the next game,” Van Rooyen revealed.

“It helps us as coaches to develop and improve every single day because if we do not address a couple of problems or things that we do well in the game then we go blindfolded in the next game. When a Sundowns team does well in two divisions, it’s a major boost because every single game that we play is very tough.”

Van Rooyen was under a lot of pressure this season given that he had to build a team from scratch and strike a balance between player development and meeting the high standards for which Sundowns is widely recognised.

At the beginning of the season, the coach inherited 16-year-olds, who were from the u15 football team. It’s a huge jump for the players from that level to the u17s, who play 90-minute matches, as professionals do all around the world.

Van Rooyen had to work on developing different aspects of the players so that they could handle the intensity that comes with u17 football and the professional football space.

“I found the journey of the team very interesting because it was a very young group, so we played with the [team born in] 2008, which is an u16 team. So, naturally playing 90 minutes for the first time, going from 35 minutes a half, physically they had to improve a lot,” he explained.

“Football action-wise, technical-wise, they had to be better and psychologically they had to be better as well. That is the learning curve that at the beginning of the season we struggled with because we would concede in the last five minutes of the first half and we could lose a game closer to the 90-minute mark.

“We dropped the intensity and more mistakes were happening. That was a natural thing for these boys playing 90 minutes for the first time. What we’ve learnt from that is that we can only improve in football action and try to keep the ball a little bit longer.

“Those were the difficult moments in the season but once the boys got better physically, technically, and psychologically, it took the strain away.”

With the Gauteng Development League growing from strength to strength every year, backed by SuperSport Schools’ broadcasting prowess, coach Van Rooyen lauded the development that the league has made over the years.

As a coach, Van Rooyen now has the resources to better analyse his team’s progress and he does that courtesy of the video footage that is available through the SuperSport Schools app.

The coach said he wants to see the league continue to grow for the better of football in the country. “The Gauteng Development League is the best in the country, but also Sub-Saharan Africa,” he enthused. “So far, the league has improved every single year with the referees, organisation, and time.

“In the last two to three years, [thanks to] full game coverage, we can analyse the game as well through the SuperSport Schools app. We can help our players develop technically and tactically.

“Now, it’s [important] to keep the consistency of it, which I think is the most important. That is the big thing for the country now, to make sure that this will be a consistent league and it will carry on for years to come.”