Maritzburg finally sign up De Sa
A 10-YEAR courtship resulted in a two-and-a-half year contract after Maritzburg United unveiled Roger De Sa as their new head coach in the KZN capital yesterday.
The mystery over Maritzburg’s new coach stretched from late November when German Ernst Middendorp resigned, and ended at Harry Gwala Stadium yesterday when the new coach was introduced to the media.
The former Orlando Pirates, Wits and Ajax Cape Town coach was always Maritzburg’s first choice, according to club chairman Farook Kadodia, who said that over the past 10 years they failed to secure him because the timing didn’t suit either party.
On this occasion when Maritzburg popped the question, De Sa was said to be biding his time in anticipation of being a contender for the Bafana Bafana post vacated when Ephraim Mashaba was booted out by Safa.
De Sa said he “looked at a few offers carefully” but that none of those were from the national mother body. Instead he needed time to finalise issues related to various business interests, and only planned to avail himself from January.
“It’s not true; I’ve never spoken to Safa and Safa have never spoken to me,” he stated when asked about rumours that he was set to fill the national hot seat. “Whenever I open the newspaper and read about my life, it’s like you guys know more about my life. As far as Safa is concerned it was fabricated.”
Kadodia was this week reluctant to confirm De Sa as new coach as he had not signed a contrac, but with formalities concluded, he gushed about having finally landed De Sa.
“The coach and I go back a long way, but the opportunity to work together didn’t come. Now we have a coach we believe has the quality we need. He has rich playing value and lots of coaching experience. More especially, he has an impeccable record of promoting youth.
“KwaZulu-Natal has a lot of players who float out of the province all the time to other teams, and we need to promote this talent and give it a platform,” said Kadodia.
Improving their development system is a long term project compared to the immediate goal of establishing the Team of Choice as a regular top eight team. Chairman and coach agreed the current side is well set to achieve that target.
Along the way, a run to a cup final and the promotion of more players to international football would be a bonus to help improve the Maritzburg brand and attract sponsorship to begin to consistently challenge the bigger clubs.
“There are challenges being in a city that doesn’t draw massive sponsorships. The challenge will be to match up and we can only do it through success,” said De Sa.
“We have to be more consistent, get into the top eight regularly, and have a decent cup run. I’m absolutely happy with the foundation established by Steve (Komphela) and Ernst, and now it’s important to keep the ship on course.”
He takes over from Fadlu Davids, who took charge of their last five games before the break and finished unbeaten. Davids will revert to his assistant coach role while continuing his studies towards a Uefa A licence badge.
The Maritzburg squad regrouped yesterday to resume training for the second half of the season which gets under way next month after the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon. Their first match under the new coach will be away to Polokwane City on February 8.