Duo’s honeymoon is over, now reality bites
There was a general allround appreciation when Fadlu Davids and Benni McCarthy were announced as head coaches at Maritzburg United and Cape Town City earlier this year. A fresh trend was being set. Not only was there no recycling of old coaches, but at 36 and 37 the duo were young and energetic.
Benni has always been a likeable guy and that he was a free-scoring goal machine in his playing days made him even more charming. The two took to their new roles like a duck taking to water.
Davids guided his team to the top of the Premiership with good wins in the first two matches and then a draw before suffering his first defeat. Things have not been easy for him since then and the team remains winless after eight more outings.
Benni had a dream start – doing well in both the league and MTN8 where he went all the way to the final. We all applauded their good work.
But they seem to have run out of steam. I am using the word steam because I just don’t want to say they seem to have run out of ideas.
It is good, however, that they have tasted the highs brought by success and now they are having their real lessons as they have to survive the pressure brought by the winless streaks their teams
Sibongiseni Gumbi
are going through.
They will now learn a lesson that Baroka’s Kgoloko Thobejane learnt last season, that “football can kill you”. Their appointments were sentimental because Fadlu had been with the Team of Choice for quite a while both as a player and assistant coach.
It will be a sad day for Farouk Kadodia when he has to axe him. I was happy that amid specula- tion that the axe was hanging over his head, Kadodia came out and called a media conference to put his weight behind his coach.
For City, Benni came with more than being just a coach as the charismatic former Bafana striker also brought with him a few fans. He is after all a son of Cape Town where the team are based and has a huge following all across the country.
I have seen friends on social networks openly voice their support for City as their adopted second team while others pledged permanent affiliation.
There is also Bernard Molekwa at Polokwane City. At 40, Molekwa is still young and considering that he never played in the professionals ranks makes his rise to the top quite an interesting one. He has done pretty well and revitalised City who are now in the semifinals of the Telkom Knockout.
It is good to see new faces at teams rather than having the same old faces being recycled. It is true after all that a new broom sweeps cleanest. Look at the wonders “Vaseline” Jelusic is doing at Celtic. When he joined, we all went on to Google to try and find out who he was.
I remember we could not find his age and had to phone the club to find out. His record looked dodgy but he seems to be a special find for Phunya Sele Sele and was announced as Coach-of-theMonth for October on Thursday.