Five things we don’t want to see this year
LOOKING ahead at 2017‚ we’ve jotted down five things we desperately don’t want to see this year in South African soccer:
1) Another Bafana losing the plot
Something about that job just seems to turn coaches into a seething ball of rabid‚ frothing-at-the-mouth madness – Gordon Igesund‚ Pitso Mosimane and most recently Shakes Mashaba.
They all start well on the field and a ball of warm‚ fuzzy charm off it.
There is often an eight-month timeline for this honeymoon period.
A few tough results‚ a hint of criticism‚ even from the fringe‚ charlatan press‚ and they transform into paranoid beings like werewolves from the moonlight‚ sprinting off into the bushveld to hunt rabbits and scratching for fleas with their hind legs.
Safa is due to appoint the new Bafana coach in the next few weeks.
Hopefully the new incumbent will learn one big‚ important lesson from the track record of his predecessors – don’t speak rubbish. 2) Charlatans coaching PSL teams It’s been a bad start to 2017‚ as already Mark Harrison has been appointed as technical director of lastplaced Baroka FC.
It’s not a coaching job but head coach Kgoloko Thobejane might have to start getting nervous‚ as the term technical director is defined in the popular football lexicon as “the coach in waiting”.
Not that we are casting aspersions on Harrison – we wish him and the promoted club all the best.
The Englishman‚ though‚ does have a decidedly iffy track record in the PSL – coaching Chippa United to relegation‚ being fired in February with Golden Arrows in last place in the year they were relegated in 2014.
3) Ernst Middendorp returning to South African football
Really‚ with reference to the above point about the charlatan coaching treadmill‚ as much as the combustible German does have some coaching track record and pedigree‚ his track Bafana coach record of never being able to stay at a club for long must surely now have alerted future employers that Middendorp is not a safe bet.
After alienating himself from the powers-that-be in South African football by having to leave Maritzburg United in November because of the public statements he consistently made about acting PSL CEO Mato Madlala‚ Middendorp has secured himself a nice‚ unchallenging job at Bangkok United.
4) Steve Komphela’s
Please Steve‚ no. We love your parallels equating football tactics to bikinis‚ but the biblical reference you made after Kaizer Chiefs lost 2-1 against Mamelodi Sundowns had TV interviewer Rob Marawa self-admittedly confused and left the rest of us as in the dark as if there had been an Eskom power cut.
5) Clubs playing C teams in continental competition
Really‚ if clubs from Uganda can send not just their fullstrength teams but also journalists to cover them in the early stages of the Caf Champions League and Confederation Cup, then surely Bidvest Wits‚ SuperSport United and Platinum Stars‚ with their far greater budgets‚ can do the same. — TMG Digital “Jesus” references