READER FEEDBACK
Cowditor, you reckon Johnson’s mandate this season is to restore Chiefs’ way of play, amongst other things? What on earth is the Kaizer Chiefs way? Well, before we go any further, I’d like to congratulate AmaZulu FC, Richards Bay, Stellenbosch FC and TS Galaxy for having qualified for the Carling Knockout semi-finals. AmaZulu and TS Galaxy are particularly looking good, definitely one of them will be in the final. Then there’s the Man of the Match controversy. Even after all the hard work from the likes of VeeJay (editor Vuyani Joni) and Siyabonga Nkalambela pleading with supporters to vote fairly, we see no improvement. I’m not surprised, seriously. Coming back to “the Chiefs way”. I particularly don’t believe there’s something like that. I don’t know what is a Chiefs or Pirates or any club way of playing football. But if anyone has a full proof or explanation of which South African club has a “particular way” of playing football, then maybe I need some teaching on this one. I live in a world where I’m able to see cultures (like winning culture as the only culture I’m able to identify in clubs like Real Madrid or maybe business-like culture as seen in clubs like Dortmund), but no particular way of playing has ever been visible enough for any club on planet earth. For example, Ancelotti and Zidane are two most recent Madrid coaches who won the league and Champions League trophies, but the team played differently under these two managements. Then what is “the Real Madrid way” here? A winning culture is observed and no one can dispute that. So, what is it with us thinking there’s a Chiefs or Pirates way of playing? What is the Chiefs or Pirates culture or their way of playing? The reason why I’m talking about the way of playing and culture in the same line is because I often hear even legends like Doctor Khumalo and Siphiwe Mkhonza mentioning Chiefs’ style. But what is all that really? Doc, you have a column in our Soccer Laduma, please just dedicate one of your columns to clarifying this.
Kwazikwakhe Ngcobo, Umlazi
In last week’s edition of Soccer Laduma, a fellow contributor to MAKE YOUR POINT, Kwazikwakhe Ngcobo, laments the fact that we seem to be fixated on the clubs we support through our contributions on a weekly basis. Whilst I agree with uMapholoba, I must however state that our clubs, in particular my team Chiefs, leave us with no room to comment on other soccer matters due to their consistent blunders in running the club. We are forced to voice our frustrations in this publication as we are not the ‘bottle-throwing’ type that we see in stadiums. For instance, why did the Motaung children not appoint Nabi when they had the opportunity to do so because there is talk that they are considering hiring a foreign coach and his name is being bandied about? Why do coaches at the club continue to play Petersen when he is committing the same blunders week in, week out? I mean, if the management read our comments in Soccer Laduma and heed what we are saying, these things wouldn’t be happening. The problem is that the Motaung children have not learnt a thing from their father on how to run a club and this is frustrating us as supporters because we cannot help but compare them to how the Motsepes are doing at Sundowns.
Sindile Kwitshana, via email