The owners are enemies and the coaches are pals
TOMORROW night’s derby between Cape Town City and Ajax Cape Town is an intriguing tale of friends and enemies.
There has been a long-standing bitterness between City boss John Comitis and the Efstathiou brothers, the owners of Ajax. Both camps will be desperate to walk off the field and cast a smirk of victory in the directions of the losers.
But to make the whole occasion even more interesting is the fact that the two coaches, City’s Eric Tinkler and Ajax’s Roger de Sa are actually the best of friends.
Caught between the warring club bosses, wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall when the two coaches have a chat? Because Tinkler and De Sa are the best of friends.
They worked together at Wits and, when De Sa took charge of Orlando Pirates in 2012, the first thing he did was to appoint Tinkler as his assistant. Now on opposing benches, they remain the best of mates, though the same cannot be said for their employers.
The relationship between Comitis and the Efstathious is a classic example of what happens when friends become enemies. They are brothers-in-law, they were in partnership in owning both Cape Town Spurs and Ajax, as well as numerous other business ventures. But things went sour, there were some very ugly boardroom spats and Comitis quit Ajax in 2013. There’s no love lost between the two.
But Comitis is now back in the PSL and, rest assured, his only goal is to be bigger than Ajax. Similarly, the Efstathious are hell-bent on maintaining their status as the Cape’s No 1 football club.
Friends and enemies… These are the peculiar circumstances that set up the rivalry and spice up the tension ahead of tomorrow’s derby.
Both clubs were in action on Tuesday, with City quite impressive in a 0-0 draw with Orlando Pirates in Soweto, while Ajax managed a 1-1 home draw against Polokwane City.
As the derby looms, both coaches and their respective teams know that they’ll have the club bosses chattering loudly and urging anxiously in their ears. The pressure is on, that’s for sure. This is a derby in which there’s a lot more at stake than just three points – it’s about pride, it’s about history, it’s about comeuppance, about settling scores and, above all, it’s about friends and enemies.
Tinkler was happy with City’s performance against Pirates, though they are still short of goals. While they outplayed the Buccaneers, most concerning for the City coach is that his team has failed to score in their last four games.
“We were worth the three points against Pirates,” he said. “It was a fantastic performance… we started extremely well, we put them under pressure, we didn’t allow them to play and we created chances.
“Unfortunately, we just didn’t put them in the net. We should have won the game, but I am nevertheless very, very proud of the boys, it was a great performance. It was a deserved point, and we were definitely worth three.”
And on the back of that superb performance against the current PSL log leaders, a buoyant City are able to head into the derby with a mood of confidence.
For De Sa, it was a bit of a mixed bag against Polokwane. There was some good but, as usual, there was the negative too.
“We started well and we should have sewn the game up in the first half,” said De Sa. “We had a few good chances, but never got the second or third goal we needed.
“We then dropped off slightly in the second half, conceded a penalty and the red card (for Roscoe Pietersen) was a double blow. It was always going to be hard to come back from that.
“In the end it was probably a good point for us, and we had to fight for the point. But I’m disappointed we didn’t kill off the game in the first half.”
He continued to lament missed opportunities, errors, conceding of possession and Ajax’s need to play the game more professionally.
These are the areas in which he is demanding improvement and there’s no better stage to implement an upswing in performance than the derby.
For friends Tinkler and De Sa, it’s is probably just another game. As professionals, they’ll prepare their teams more than adequately and impress on them the significance of it all.
But, for friends-turned-enemies Comitis and the Efstathious, this is much more than just a football match.
No doubt they’ll ratchet up the pressure on De Sa and Tinkler and so – just for that 90 minutes tomorrow, unfortunately – the two coaches will have to temporarily put on hold their friendship and become enemies in this desperate quest for victory and superiority.
Friends indeed ... and enemies,