W hat w e’ve been doing has not been w orking
PEOPLE AS “AS MUCH MOST HAVE THE SAY THEY THE BEST MONEY AND WERE WHEN WE PLAYERS… THEM. WE BEAT SANTOS, AT PLAYERS, THE THEY HAD BEAT THEM.” BUT WE
Boebie Solom on s has been in t he g am e of footballforlon ger than m ost can rem em ber, m ost n otably coachin g thelikesofSan tos,the n ow -defun ct Bidvest Wits an d Polok w an e City,am on g others,but overthelast few years hehasbeen flyin g un der theradar.Out ofsight,out of m in d,as they say,but it doesn ot m ean the68-yearis old rest in g on his laurels or sp en din g his days w at chin g thesun set.Hehaslon g taken a step back from thehustle an d bustleof coachin g in t he Prem ier Soccer L eag ue an d has in stead turn ed his focus tow ards develop in g theyouth an d coachesof tom orrow ,w hich hefeels is m oreim p ortan t at this stageofhislifethan w orkin g asa head coach in the top flig ht.Curren tly based in Cap e Tow n ,Solom on s isdoing somew ork w ith SAFA an d w as recen tly p art of Stellen bosch FC. In this in terview w ith Soccer L adum a’s Tshep an g Mailw an e,theform er Win n ers Park m en tortalk s about exactly w hat he has been up to an d g ives his t houg ht s on Mam elodi Sun dow n s’dom in an ce.
Tsh ep ang Mailwane: Hello ,Bo ebie. It’s been a wh ile since we h ave heardfrom you.Forthosewho m ig h tno tkno w wh ere yo u are currently,p lease sh are wh at yo u h ave been up to …
BoebieSolomons: I am doing well. I have been heavily involved in coaching education, teaching and m entoring coaches. I’ve also just finished a contract with Stellenbosch Football Club, where I was the Technical Consultant. While I was there, I put in a youth structure. I was Head of Youth at Stellenbosch, and you could see that within three years we caught up with the academ ies all over South Af rica. I am also linked to Maties Football Club, the university. There’s a joint venture between Stellenbosch and the university. We look for students who can play football and also have good academ icpossibilities. So, that is where I have been spending a lot of tim e. But I am also the Technical Director of SAFA Cape Town. I am very involved in the selection of provincial team s, the coaches and running coaching courses in Cape Town.
TM:Whydidyoun o t co n? tinue with Stellenbo sch
BS: My contract finished. The boat is m oving, and they are continuing now because the f oundation is in place. I also can’t be attached too long at one organization because I am needed in m ore areas than at one place. That’s why I am also on the SASCOC coaching com m ission and on the SAFA technical com m ittee. I have a lot of functions that I need to perform , so a club actually ties m y hands a bit. I am happy that has happened.
TM: Do es th at m ean th at th e p o ssibility o f co ach ing at club level in the PSL is comp letely o ut as an o p tionforyou?
BS: I think I can play a bigger role. Us coaches who have been through the professional stages have to play a bigger role. We need to guide the younger coaches and be m entors. Also, we need to play a role f or the nation. We only think about our own environm ent only, but we need to look at the bigger picture. What I am happy about is that during the pandem ic, we developed the first online coaching course. We’ve done five accredited D Licence online coaching courses. That’s why you’ve hardly heard about m e. I am going to spend a lot of tim e with that, especially with people from the rural areas because they have to travel and take tim e off from work. That’s difficult f or them , so we can do it online. They have to spend a little bit m ore on data m aybe, but they save a lot of m oney on travel, f ood, accom m odation and all those things. If you look at our country, it’s dif f icult f or people to go to other areas, so we are finding ways to go to them and provide valuable inf orm ation to them . ing for this f or a long tim e. The only problem is that we are accredited at SAFA as coaching instructors. Now that we are aligned to CAF, we can be graded and be CAF instructors. That will give us an opporto tunity give back to higher-level coaches and learn m ore about developing the youth at a grassroots level because that is the
TM: Ho w im p o rtant is it fo r co ach es,esp ec iallyinthetopflig h t,to h ave th ese co ach ing q ualificatio ns? BS: The coaching courses will always give you the tools on how to handle situations like conf lict and dealing with signing players and analyzing opponents. All those things are im portant. So, it’s about knowing how you can take your club to a higher level and to take your club to CAF tournam ents. This (the CAF A Licence) will help us in knowing how to catch up with the rest of the world and what we need to put in place and f ocus on because what we have been doing has not been working and we m ust be honest. But now this gives us m ore tools and it gives us as coaches the tools to speak to m anagem ent about the things we need.
TM: Lo o king at thePSLatthe m o m ent,wh atdo youmakeofthe yo ung er co ach es such as Rh ulani Mokwena,Mabh udiKh enyeza and Vusum uziV ilakazico m ing th ro ug h ? BS: There are som e coaches who have the art of putting through the m essage. I will look at coaches who are handling lower team s than I would look at the coaches handling (Mam elodi) Sundowns, f or instance, because there you’ve got the best players. If you win som ething, you are not achieving anything, you are just repeating what others have already done. But if you look at Mabhudi Khenyeza or lower-level coaches who are getting their clubs out from the bottom , that, f or m e, shows that they can work with players who m ay not be the best but you can produce som ething out of it. That, f or m e, is a coach. If you can take som ething out of nothing and groom that group and achieve som ething like get into the Top Eight and reach the sem i-f inal or f inal of a knockout com petition, that shows the quality of your work.
TM: Being someone who comes from CapeTown,whatdo youthink oftheprogressofclubsfrom the Mo th er City in th e DStv Prem iersh ip ? BS:
I think the f inancial support can be im proved a bit and the quality of the players can im prove. The Cape Town team s put a lot of trust in the youth, which is good, but youth is inconsistent, so you need quality players around the youth. I think they can upgrade the salary structures because m oney m akes a dif f erence. In today’s world, the youth does not have the sam e m entality that we had bef ore. We would play f or nothing, but we would die on the f ield. So, the youth of today are dif f erent, and you have to keep up with that. You can’t be stubborn to say, “Play f or the badge.” The players talk to each other, and they will know if som eone is getting R50 000 while they are getting R10 000. It m akes a dif f erence. These are the things that can help.
TM: Are th e Cap e To wn clubs no t affected by co nstantly selling th eir bestp layers to Gauteng sides?
BS:
When you sell a player to a big club, what does it m ean? It m eans you have sold one of your better players and so it’s im portant to bring in the sam e type of quality to work with the ones who are already there. That’s som ething I think we are not getting right. We are selling players to the other clubs, which are good, and we are not getting players who are as good. We are bringing in the young ones to replace those who have been sold, so I think that’s the balance we can im prove on.
TM:Whatdo youmakeofthe q uality o f th e leag ue o verall,esp ecially with Sundo wns do m inating so m uch ? BS:
We need to change that. As m uch as people say they have the m ost m oney and the best players… when we were at Santos, we beat them . They had the players, but we beat them . We won two m ajor trophies. So, m aybe the coaches are not com ing up with the right gam e plans. If you want to f ight at a higher level, you’ve got to do what is going to help you, not try to play like Barcelona but you are trying to beat Sundowns. You m ust devise a plan to beat Sundowns and that’s what we did when we were at Santos. The strategies that we cam e up with were to beat those team s, not to show that they can play better than you. It was not about the way we played against them but how we overcam e and used our strengths to our advantage. The coaches need to transf er that to the players.
TM: So m e valuable advice,co ach . Sp o ken like th e veteran th at yo u are. Th ank yo u so m uch fo r yo ur tim e,Bo ebie.
BS: