Kjell is no fly by night Baxter
STUART Baxter would be the best person to tell new Orlando Pirates coach Kjell Jonevret how tough a first match at a big PSL club can be.
When Baxter joined Kaizer Chiefs in 2012, he had the pressure of turning things around after the club finished with no trophies in the cabinet the previous season.
His first match was an absolute disaster, losing 4-1 to Mamelodi Sundowns in the MTN8. But he turned things around as Chiefs went on to win the 2012/2013 Absa Premiership title.
Unlike Jonevret, Baxter had a pre-season with Chiefs.
Swede Jonevret was given less than a week to prepare for his first match against Polokwane City at Orlando Stadium tomorrow (3.30pm) and it will be like that for the rest of the season. He’ll be more concerned about getting the confidence back in a Pirates side who have not won since November.
“Look, he will be a very serious football man. Scandinavian coaches are serious football people – they are not fly-by-nights. He will come here and want to earn his money and I think that’s probably good news for the chairman [Irvin Khoza],” said Baxter.
“I know him. We are not what you call friends going out to have dinner every week, but we’ve been around in Sweden at the same time playing against each other and gone to coaching courses. So yeah, I know him very well,” said Baxter, who coached Swedish side Helsingborgs IF between 2006 and 2007, during which time Jonevret was in charge of fellow giants Djurgardens IF.
Jonevret has received a temporary work permit, so he’ll be on the bench tomorrow. He’s not likely to make too many changes to the recent Pirates teams we’ve seen, but he’ll work on motivating the players to ensure the same group of players that have been under-performing start getting positive results.
“He’s going to learn how to deliver information to South African players. They (SA players) are not Swedes, they are not Japanese; they are South Africans and I think that’s the technique he would have to learn, but I think what he will do is structure them all,” Baxter said.