Chiefs’ coach under pressure
The AmaKhosi have finally unveiled a new coach but Steve Komphela’s replacement faces huge challenges with the start of the new season just weeks away.
After months of speculation over a new coach, Kaizer Chiefs have left boss Giovanni Solinas little time to prepare for the new season and a meeting with Mamelodi Sundowns on 4 August - if a draft fixture list for the opening day of the Absa PSL remains unchanged.
The Italian was unveiled by Chiefs on Friday and while the hot seat at Naturena is warm at the best of times, it will be searing for Solinas from day one as his position was greeted with little excitement among many AmaKhosi faithful.
He is expected to turn around the fortunes of a Chiefs side that has not won a trophy in three years, the longest barren run in the club’s illustrious 48-year history.
And he has been given little time to work with the players, a key factor for TAB soccer punters to consider in the opening months of the season.
Coaches often say that the most important time of any campaign is the work that is done before it starts, putting in place not just the right physical regime but also underpinning the tactics the team will use.
Solinas is now playing a game of catch-up in a season with a congested fixture list that also sees the team competing in the African Confederation Cup.
In fact, it is not yet clear if he will even be on the bench for their PSL opener in less than three weeks as he must still receive his work permit before he can officially take up the reins.
In his favour is that he knows South African football from two brief spells with Free State Stars in 2016, but having been parachuted in at what is almost the end of the club’s pre-season, he has little time to get his ideas over to the players.
Chiefs are also still looking to add to their squad and have yet to see the arrival of new playmaker Dax from Malagasy club Fosa Juniors. It is a vital position that needs to be filled, plus another striker and players who can provide width are needed.
Chiefs’ football manager Bobby Motaung was quick to suggest that Solinas “ticked all the boxes” they were looking for in a new coach, but he is, at the very best, their fifth choice in what was at times a tortuous search for a new tactician.
Avram Grant, Patrice Carteron, Hossam Al-Badary and Stuart Baxter were seemingly all ahead of him on Chiefs’ wish list and there were likely others.
But the Soweto club could not persuade any to join them and despite what they might say now, Solinas’ appointment smacks of desperation to fill the post some two months after former boss Steve Komphela departed.
The proof will be in the results, but just how patient the Chiefs faithful will be with a coach that is a left-field appointment is the key question, especially as great rivals Orlando Pirates have risen from their slumbers under Micho Sredojevic.