It never rains, it pours at Chiefs

Concern. where the in Gold

Such has been the downward spiral that Kaizer Chiefs have been on, that week in and week out, the popular MAKE YOUR POINT section of Soccer Laduma is dripping with tears of the club’s faithful, pouring their hearts out on the goings-on at Naturena, both on and off the field. Behind the hurt and the heartbreak that each of these letters display, is the care and love they have for their team, eight years of trophy drought notwithstanding. But truth be told, Amakhosi’s descent into a perpetual state of mediocrity, in juxtaposition from their glorious years where they churned out entertaining football and won

I feel for the Chairman Saddam Maake – Chiefs supporter

“Ok, coach Cavin Johnson is our interim coach, which means someone else is going to take charge of the team sooner or later. We have to support him, even after the disappointing loss to Orlando Pirates, which is the toughest loss to take. I don’t have a problem with the coach but the players. We signed a couple of players, but from what I can see, our players don’t want to show us what we want. We are being abused out there, with people teasing us all the time. What is going on at Chiefs? There are only three ‘people’ who are concerned about the club – Jessica Motaung and her marketing team, Chiefs supporters who always go out to rally behind the team and buy the club’s merchandise, and thirdly, the kitmen, groundsmen and everyone in the staff because our team always looks great and well-taken care of. Those are the only people who care about Chiefs and I feel sorry for the Chairman. He’s being let down by people who are supposed to protect his legacy, just days after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Even on his birthday, they failed to deliver at FNB Stadium and disappointed him. I can see their body language when they take to the field. They scored three goals without us, the supporters, at FNB, which was a first this season, and what happened after that? How about Kaizer (Motaung) tells us to stay away for two games and see if the players will continue to win? Maybe we have bad luck and they don’t want us at the stadium. My question to the players: What can we do to help? What do you want us to do? What we know is that Chiefs players’ job is simply to make the supporters and sponsors happy, not hurt them.”

I’m not interested in SA coaches, but… ‘Man B’ Tyekana – Chiefs supporter

“I’m gonna be very honest with you, I think the coach went to the derby with a defensive mentality. You could easily tell this from the almost every trophy available, should be a cause for real After last weekend’s Soweto Derby defeat to traditional rivals Orlando Pirates, performance of the men and Black was so lacklustre that the fans would not have been unreasonable to demand a refund of the match ticket fare, the question is: What’s going on at the Glamour Boys? In this feature, Soccer Laduma editor Vuyani Joni and Lunga Adam search for the answers from the wounded Khosi Nation. line-up, seeing that he started with all of Yusuf Maart, Edson Castillo and Sibongiseni Mthethwa. You can’t go to a game against Pirates and be defensive from the word go, they will beat you. Look what happened. When he made those changes in the second half bringing in players like Mduduzi Shabalala, Christian Saile and Pule Mmodi, then we started playing a bit and threatening Pirates. So, my appeal is for the coach to please check the game. You can’t go to a game to defend. You go there to attack. Number one, I wish Chiefs could copy that style of Manchester (United), who brought in Benni McCarthy to coach the strikers. We have the likes of Marks Maponyane and Shaun Bartlett, who used to play for Chiefs and can go and teach the strikers how to kick the ball in front of the net instead of passing it. Overseas they score goals from long range. Also, we need quality strikers. How can you sign a striker on loan? Someone who’s on loan has no value, he’s just going through the motions. We must pay for quality strikers. We really are not feeling good because as Chiefs supporters, we are spoilt. If you can check, even now, we are rated at number three in Africa in terms of trophies (won). When we are playing like this and not even competing in Africa, it’s really not nice for us as Chiefs supporters. But luckily, because we live and love Chiefs, we have no option but to keep on supporting the team. We do hear rumours that the head office is busy interviewing coaches, and I think if we can get a coach who has pedigree and a winning mentality, we’ll be good. We need a coach that they can say at this particular team he won this and that, and at that particular team he won this and that, not someone who assisted so-and-so. We don’t need those people. We need a coach with a record. If we can get a coach that Chiefs will make a decision to give him time to work on the team, and just listen to us when we are complaining here and there, we can improve. We haven’t been told anything by the head office, we just catch these rumours on social media, but of the coaches on the list… Mna (Me), to be honest, I’m not interested in South

African coaches at all, but I can give Pitso a chance because I don’t treat him as a South African. He is on a very high level. If they want to give a South African a chance, Pitso is the last South African they can give a chance to because he’s on his own level.”

Chiefs need to go back… Sergio Dos Santos – Former Chiefs coach

“I’ve said this before, many, many times! The very first thing is that, if I asked you the question: ‘Which player (from the current crop) is the Kaizer Chiefs player?’ 20 or 30 years ago, if I asked you the same question, you would be able to answer this question easily. What I mean by ‘the Chiefs player’ is not necessarily the quality of the player or what he brings to the team. I’m talking about the player that comes from Kaizer Chiefs and you’d tell me about Trevor Mthimkhulu, Wellington Manyathi, Brian Baloyi, Marks Maponyane, Lucas Radebe, Zebulon “Sputla” Nhlapo, the late Ryder Mofokeng, among others. That means your background, your platform is already in place. On top of that, you then have Ace Ntsoelengoe, Malombo Lechaba, Computer Lamola, Shaka Ngcobo, Jackie Masike, and that means you have the experience of the players who understand the culture of the team. Then the youngsters are coming in slowly, from the junior ranks, even new signings scouted from other teams and then they all combine in a lovely cooking pot. Everybody knows exactly what they are doing, why they are doing it and what it means to play for Amakhosi. At the moment, you can’t say that because, if you look at that team, who is the Chiefs player? Where is the boss at the back? There’s no boss! Where is the special player in the midfield? None! Where is the striker that you know is going to cause problems up front? There is no one! What happens is, the coaches that are in charge are trying to put something together, but if you don’t get the right quality, it is not going to work. When you cook, you have to put a bit of different things together and then your meat. What we’ve got at Chiefs is a cooking pot with all the ingredients, but there’s no meat. The reason it is like that is because over the last 10 years or so, the club has been trying to sign players because they are good players, but they forgot to ask the question: ‘Are they the Chiefs players?’ If you look at Mamelodi Sundowns now, they understand who is a Sundowns player. They go out there and fetch them, which is why they are settled and playing beautiful football because every player knows what they need to do. You can see the balance of the team. You’ve got players who have been there for seven years or so, a few youngsters coming in and when they sign a new player, it sometimes takes a little while for that player to get going. That’s the Chiefs way of doing things. Their cooking pot is full of the right ingredients. Chiefs need to go back to the old way. Find the right coach because the supporters are crying. This is not the Chiefs way that we are playing, but we don’t have to worry about the Chiefs way now. Rebuild the team and slowly. Once you do that, everything will fall into place. Secondly, get the right players who are Chiefs players. Chiefs needs to be right up there because that’s what the supporters, the country and the DStv Premiership need. It is sad to see what’s going on at Chiefs.”

That’s the picture that we see Humphrey Mlwane – Former Chiefs midfielder

“The pace of their game, for me maan, eish! Plus, there’s no special player, if I may put it that way. You know ukuthi (that) Chiefs tends to have special players, a person that can carry the team, and for me, in this generation, I don’t see anyone who can take that responsibility. The leadership part on the field, there’s no one who’s talking to the players when the chips are down. Even when you are sitting up there (in the stands), you can see some of these things, that there’s no one who can carry the team. They are also playing safe all the time, passing the ball back. They take the ball, play a back pass, take the ball, play a back pass. The wingers can’t take the man on. When people play safe, obviously results won’t be there because you need to have players that can force matters, players that can change the game for the team. On Saturday, I didn’t see the that. The aggressiveness. The hunger. I didn’t see that, eish. During our playing days, I would win the ball and give it to Thabo (Mooki). He would do his thing, eliminate (defenders) and then give it to the striker and the striker would get the goal. Thabo and Thabang (Lebese) were there in terms of making those special moments. Currently, there’s no player that can change the game for us and create special moments. For us, Thabo, Thabang and Doctor (Khumalo) were there, we had a lot of players that could win games for us. Also, our striker (Ranga Chivaviro) is too slow. He can show up, but then he becomes stagnant and then they dispossess him quickly. He does not have that element of surprise about him. I thought the game changed when (Christian) Saile came on, he brought a lot of speed. Today’s game is all about speed. You saw the game between Chelsea and Man City, there was pace all over the pitch. Manje (Now) this Ranga, I thought this guy maybe can bring something for the team, but for now he hasn’t done anything. I don’t know… because I’m a coach, I cannot go to the coach, I look at the players because that’s the mirror, that’s the picture that we see. At training, I’m not there, you see, so I don’t know what’s happening there. But what I saw, I was not impressed in terms of the winning mentality. Abanayo i (They don’t have the) winning mentality laba bantu (these people). They must also be able to change the play in terms of speed on the field of play because when you attack, you can’t attack on the same level. I can make an example… In that Chelsea v Man City game, there was a lot of attack, a lot of speed. Players like (Raheem) Sterling, Cole (Palmer) and (Erling) Haaland rose to the occasion and you could see that these are the players that can win the game for you.”