Think about it, Bucs & Chiefs!

For the past 15 seasons, Mamelodi Sundowns have dominated the domestic football space by winning the league title seven times, while their direct rivals, Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs have won it twice apiece. Five of those were back-to-back titles, with SuperSport United winning it thrice on the trot, followed by Pirates who won it back-to-back and Bidvest Wits winning it once.

The same Sundowns that are now sweeping the floor with Amakhosi and the Buccaneers when it comes to silverware, were in the exact same position that two of the biggest teams in the country find themselves in, in recent times, experiencing a prolonged trophy drought. It took a change in the way they do things for them to be where they are today and maybe, just maybe, it is time for the two Soweto giants to take a leaf out of the Chloorkopbased team’s playbook. It wasn’t until Sundowns management gave the power to run the club to the technical team that they started seeing a massive change in their fortunes. Everyone will remember how Sundowns, before coach Pitso Mosimane’s arrival, used to welcome several new signings almost every transfer window period, with no stability and continuity at all. Following coach Mosimane’s arrival, things changed, and the management focused on managing the day-to-day running of the club while the technical team was independently in charge of player acquisition and movement.

That change has seen the club make up ground against the Soweto giants, who continue to watch from the sidelines as Ka Bo Yellow continue to ascend the podium to collect gold medals for either winning the league title or trophy after trophy. On this platform, a couple of discussions have taken place about where the two powerhouses of South African football are getting it wrong. Lack of stability in the technical team has been one of the Achilles tendons of the two. Maybe one of the things to learn is giving the power to the head coaches so that they are in complete control of their teams. They don’t inherit anyone’s signings or get given an already assembled team to work with. Imagine if the two teams wouldn’t sign any players until they had a head coach who would make his own decisions. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, knowing that the coach has been given all the ammunition he needed to go to war?

Just this season, both teams have signed and released a number of players before they even appointed their respective head coaches. Who knows what changes coach Arthur Zwane and Jose Riveiro would have made to their teams had they been appointed on time and given complete control of the team by bringing in players they wanted and release those they deemed surplus to requirements? Now the coaches are ‘forced’ to work with players they probably wouldn’t have even considered or are left wishing certain players had been retained. Every season, there are players who are clearly not in the coach’s plans, but they have contracts that need to be honored by the club. Yes, some people will say Pitso earned the right to be given complete control and the current technical team of coach Manqoba Mngqithi, Rhulani Mokwena and Steve Komphela have also done the same, but how can anyone prove themselves without being given a chance? Yes, every team has its own way of doing things, a culture and philosophy, but that doesn’t mean they have to bang their heads against the wall, when the window is right in front of them, in search of an alternative exit. When are the coaches going to get a chance to look into their succession plan when they struggle to implement their philosophy and are worried about their future? When they don’t even know if they will see out the duration of the contract they’ve signed, being judged on the results yet they can’t even decide on the signings?

Successful teams plan and their technical teams go for specific players who will suit their style of play and philosophy. They get the team going and then start identifying players to replace their current stars while they are still at their peak so that the transition becomes smoother. You need time to do so and that will also determine the number of players you sign as well as the players you send out on loan. To a layman, it doesn’t make sense to sign players and loan them out, but the technical team know what they are doing because they are getting the player the muchneeded game-time that they can’t give them elsewhere. So, everyone benefits and when that player comes back, he’s ready to fight for a place in the team. That means no player will get lost in the system when this is done by the same technical team, but when you chop and change coaches, then some of these players’ contracts will expire without them ever coming back to the team, leaving question marks about why they were signed in the first place. Without scouting reports, even the management won’t know what progress these players are making at the teams they are loaned out to. So, all these things can’t happen when the power is taken away from the technical team because they are the ones who should be managing all these things rather than having management do it on their own. When things are not done right, you miss one player and the whole team is completely different and struggling.

The number of times the two teams have changed coaches in recent years doesn’t allow for any stability. Yes, they have their own way of doing things and they are too big to be run by just one man, a coach, who may not be there for long, but maybe it is time for change. This is how they’ve always operated and succeeded, but maybe it is time to reinvent the wheel because the old way is clearly not working. Coach Gavin Hunt’s name appears four times in the abovementioned championship-winning teams with both SuperSport and Bidvest Wits, where he was fully in charge of the comings and goings, which showed in the results.

The reality is that no self-respecting and hands-on coach would touch these two teams with a barge pole because top coaches want to be judged based on their performance, not through someone else’s decisions. These coaches would love to coach these teams, but because they have intel on how they operate, they choose to protect their peace rather than subject themselves to such unconducive working environments. This is not to say Bucs and Chiefs coaches have no say at all, but, based on this season, no one can argue about the fact that the respective managements played a greater role than the head coaches when it came to putting their teams together. They made crucial decisions without the coaches, who obviously signed on the dotted lines closer into the new campaign. Players were signed and released before their arrival and that’s a fact. Maybe it is time to trust and believe in the coaches more by empowering them to make their own decisions. Give them space to operate in and see what happens. Yes, these are massive teams, but change is good and it is only fair to hold the coach accountable for results when they were supported enough to get the players they needed. Until we do that, sadly, the two teams will continue to celebrate ‘accidental success’ only because it happens in the Beautiful Game. This is when you win something but you don’t even know how it happened or you can’t even repeat it. Talk about riding your luck. Planned success comes with clearly planned programs, a succession plan, proper scouting, among other things, so that the whole team is in sync. Maybe it is time for change. Think about it!

As a parting shot, it is so exciting to hear the positive feedback from you guys about the new-look Doctor Khumalo column. For those who are online and have not seen it, please make sure to grab a copy of the paper. We are also launching the Soccer Laduma player cards in this edition and that should also be exciting as part of this newspaper’s evolution. Lastly, for those who are reading the hardcopy, please make sure to head to our website and see our revamped website and remember that you need to register to be able to comment on articles. Please let us know what you think of these innovations.