Rulani Mokwena outlines Al-Ittihad expectations

The 39-year-old was confirmed on Wednesday, as previously reported by SABC Sport, alongside a strong South African technical team following his departure from MC Alger last weekend.

Looking ahead, Mokwena made it clear he understands the scale of the challenge, revealing he has been brought in to drive transformation at the Libyan giants.

"It's an incredible challenge, we are excited about this. It's the most decorated team in Libya. The one team that's shown more potential in African competitions, being the only ones really to get into the semifinals but we need to try to revive it now with the fans, with the success on the pitch and some dominant performances,” Mokwena said.

“We see the potential in how they moved in the market in the last two or three windows but we are looking forward to it, it will be massive. It will be difficult but I think it's important that we achieve relatively quick success but also it's a long term project and we try to view it like this to try to add some things into it and move in a way. 

“But we are confident,we trust our work, we trust our ideas and we trust the staff we have."

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Mokwena believes the club has already assembled a squad with quality and depth.

"We've analysed the squad, we see that we've got some really good players in Rodger [Aholou] who's a Togolese international, Clement [Ikenna] who's a Nigerian, a very experienced player who's played in Europe,” the coach explained. 

“Obviously Aziz Ki [Stephane], Lorch [Thembinkosi], they bring the quality.  Zerhouni [Nawfel] who's a Moroccan player who was incredible in the Botola for Raja, there's some very good players. 

“So, we've analysed the squad, we are confident that we have the material but of course there's a lot of hard work and a lot more for us to try to resolve and adapt to the league and adapt to the conditions and see how far we can go."