Ramudzuli: Strikers a forgotten breed among club coaches
Rudzani Ramudzuli (right) believes he has the found the formula to solve South Africa’s goal scoring conundrum.
The former Orlando Pirates striker, who is the older brother of Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder Tiyani Mabunda, says teams need to start prioritising the striking department because scoring goals has become a national problem in South African football.
“Each team has a goalkeeping coach, the main coach, the assistant – all the positions have someone helping out the players with what they need to do, but when you are a striker it’s as if you need to sort yourself out, you will have to learn on your own. How do you get better when there is no one showing you how to do it or rectify your mistakes, how you will know your strengths and weakness as a striker. We say a lot of negative things about strikers, but no one is developing them,” said Ramudzuli.
Ramudzuli is coaching an SAB league side based in Eersterust, Pretoria called Prophetic Soccer Boys which he helped to promotion. The 2017/2018 season marks the former footballer’s second year with the club. Working with a junior team has opened his eyes to the challenges that lower league coaches face when trying to achieve their mandates.
The former Bafana Bafana striker says each coach in the lower league needs time to build a squad that can gain promotion to a league a level above the one the team is in. The Limpopo born footballer is happy with the performance of teams from his native province and offered words of wisdom to these teams.
“We can talk now as people from Limpopo where we have two or three teams in the league, we now have teams in the NFD and PSL. I just worry about people in these teams who analyse the business side of things. For example, why do they always change coaches? Say a coach had put the team in sixth position, he loses three games and they fire the coach and sell their good players. Each year they bring in a new coach, new players, but it is not possible to win promotion that way. You can’t rebuild each season, you won’t move out of that league.”
The striker now lives with his wife and kids in Midrand and attends church services three to four times a week. Ramudzuli used to be a taxi boss a few years ago but decided to move away from the taxi industry because of the violence and the demands that come with being a member of a certain taxi association. The family man says his wife has a nine-to-five-job and he would like to keep his children away from business so that they can get an education.
“I only own two taxis as I’m in the transportation business now, I prefer to make arrangements with a company or people to transport them from here to there. Owning a taxi comes with a lot of stress, going to the rank attending meetings during the day takes away time for church and football.
“I am also into tenders, I supply government offices with cleaning material, equipment and stationary. I am available for that. I registered a construction company but it needs me to be there full-time which I couldn’t do, so I had to cancel that.”