In Touch With...

CHIPPA UNITED’S LERATO MANZINI (PART 1)

Hola, Ibrah. Welcome to the ‘In Touch With…’ page and we hope Port Elizabeth has been great to you.

Thanks, grootman (big man). PE has been good, we are enjoying the good run so far and things are looking promising for us as a team.

That’s true. What have you got for our readers?

Ha, ha, ha, I thought about some stories and I hope your readers will enjoy them. Let me start with our former coach, Dan Malesela, during our time together here a at Chippa United. We were in a pre-season camp in Durban and everyone knows how w passionate coach Dan is about football and the style of play he enjoys. He doesn ’t want to see players kicking the ball up in the air and running, as he’s more about carpet football and patient build-ups. We had a gym session in the morning and were going to play a friendly game against Thanda Royal Zulu in the afternoon. This was before the season when they won the league and got promoted to the Absa Premiership (Thanda then sold their status to AmaZulu). Our former coach, Roger Sikhakhane, was still new at Thanda and coach Dan reminded us that morning that we were going to play a friendly against Thanda and he also told us that he wasn’t going to coach h bbutt jjustt watch t h ffrom ththe stands. t d HHe said he was expecting to see what we had been working on during the camp in that match. We were all looking forward to the game.

Right.

It was time to go to the stadium and the game started. Eish, those Thanda guys were all over us, running non-stop, ha, ha, ha. They scored and took complete control of the game and forced us to play differently to what the coach has instructed us. Eish, the coach wasn’t happy at all. We had his assistant, Mbuyiselo Sambu, on the bench and coach Dan shouted, “No, Sambu, I’m leaving tomorrow! I’m not going to watch this nonsense! I told these guys how to play and what they must do, now they’re running all over the field with the ball instead of passing the ball around. Since when do we play like this, Sambu? What’s wrong with these guys? No, I’m booking a flight out tomorrow and I’d rather stay at home than this. These boys are un-coachable, man. I’m leaving, Sambu!” Ha, ha, ha, eish, that was so funny and d we couldn’t ld ’t stop t llaughinghi bbecause ththe coach was so serious.

Ha, ha, ha, talk about passion!

Ha, ha, ha, the coach was really not impressed. After the game, he told us exactly what he thought and even took it a step further, ha, ha, ha. He said, “Niyabona manje, lomfana u (You see now, this guy) Roger (Sikhakhane) uzong’delela (is going to disrespect me) because of you. Imagine losing against Roger and his NFD team? No, guys, you’ve let me down. Roger has won against us now and that’s going to make them talk too much because they beat a PSL team and you allowed that to happen.” Ha, ha, ha, eish, that’s coach Dance for you. The man really loves football. The thing about him is that he hates losing… he really does… but if you lose playing good football, then he has no problem accepting it. Whenever we played good football and lost, he would accept it. You also can’t allow the opposition team to dominate possession and think coach Dance will be happy – he hates that so much, ha, ha, ha. He also hates players that run with the ball; they frustrate him a lot. He wants you to just pass the ball and keep it on the ground a and then you’ll play in his team.

Possession is key in coach Dance’s philosophy.

Ja, that’s true. There’s another story about coach Dance that involved me, ha, ha, ha. I had a problem with my eyes, so night games were a little bit of a problem. This one time we were at training and then had a team meeting afterwards. The coach calls me, during the meeting, and asks if I was aware that we were preparing for two away night games, since he knew I had an eyesight problem? He further said my eyesight issues meant I would be out of action for at least eight games since that was the number of night games we had in the first round of the season. He also suggested that I go and get contact lenses and all that. So, I stood up and stopped him, to say I have eye drops that I use before night games and they’re working perfectly fine for me. That means he has nothing to worry about. We left the conversation at that and then the next day we were off to play our first game against Golden Arrows, ha, ha, ha.

Ha, ha, ha, let’s leave it on that intriguing note. We can’t wait to hear the rest of the story next week…

Ha, ha, ha, for sure, my brother.

“He hates that so much, ha, ha, ha.” “I had a problem with my eyes…”