Lean period continues for Hunt and Chiefs
Gavin Hunt will be glad to see the back of February after the ailing club finished the month without winning a single match in all competitions on Sunday.
Chiefs are in the midst of a lean spell and the misery continued when they were handed an embarrassing 4-0 defeat by Morocco side Wydad Casablanca in a tense Champions League group match in Burkina Faso on Sunday.
The visitors’ plans unravelled early in the game when Mohamed Ounajem put the North Africans in the lead in the seventh minute. It was always going to be a tough mountain to climb for Hunt’s charges after that early setback as they were forced to chase the game and set it back on a level footing.
Amakhosi tried to claw their way back, but their brave challenge was stopped in its tracks when Ayoub El Kaabi added a second on the stroke of halftime.
Chiefs had played well in the opening period as they went in search of the elusive equaliser but El Kaabi’s second strike took the wind out of their sails.
To their credit, the visitors never dropped their heads and continued to search for a path to Wydad goalkeeper Ahmed Reda Tagnaouti’s domain when play resumed in the second half.
Serbian Samir Nurković and his colleagues furiously fought for every ball but the Moroccans always had the look of a side that could break Chiefs’ resolve. And they did just that in the 85th minute when Simon Msuva brilliantly beat Chiefs keeper Itumeleng Khune with a delicious lob from the edge of the area.
But the North Africans were not done and Yahya Jabrane completed the humiliation when he beat Khune from the penalty spot in referee’s added time.
The referee awarded Wydad the penalty after ruling that Ramahlwe Mphahlele handled the ball in the area. The Chiefs captain was already on a yellow card and was shown the red.
It was another defeat in a different competition for Hunt after watching his charges suffer an ignominious loss to lower-tier Richards Bay in the Nedbank Cup early in February. It was a humiliating result that Hunt said at the time was the most embarrassing in the 27 years he has been in football.
But these were not the only heartbreaking results he presided over as Chiefs failed to win a league match in February, with their last win back on January 19 when they beat Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila.
The most recent encounter was supposed to have been played on February 13 and courted immense controversy after the Moroccans refused to grant visas to Chiefs‚ citing Covid-19 fears as the reason.
The game was postponed several times in the past few days and it took belated intervention by the Confederation of African Football and a long overdue ultimatum before the Moroccans hastily secured Burkina Faso as a neutral venue.
Chiefs drew 0-0 at home in their first outing in the group stages in a game that had Hunt pulling his hair out in frustration at FNB Stadium last week.