Chiefs’ manna from heaven?

Donning the Black & Gold jersey of Kaizer Chiefs is, undoubtedly, one of the most highpressure jobs in South African football. Tasked with scoring goals for them is an even more daunting ask. The legion of Amakhosi fans want nothing but to see the ball in the back of the net week in and week out, something their new 1.94m lanky man up front, BonfilsCaleb Bimenyimana has managed to do so far this season. But is the Burundian goal poacher the missing piece to the puzzle as the club looks to end a seven-season silverware drought? Time will certainly tell, but for now, the jury is out on the 24-year-old who, despite netting six goals so far, has already mixed the sublime with the ridiculous with a plethora of wasted chances, something that might see him endure a lovehate relationship with the Khosi Nation at some point. Is Bimenyimana Chiefs’ answer to their scoring concerns? Amakhosi’s manna from heaven, so to speak? In this feature, Soccer Laduma’s Tumelo Letlhaku casts a microscopic eye on the progress of “The Black Panther” thus far and his expected glittering future with arguably the biggest giants.

Zwane’s accidental signing?

It’s remarkable that the gangly forward almost slipped out of Kaizer Chiefs’ fingers after spending a few weeks on trial at the club. The general consensus was that he had failed to leave an impression on coach Arthur Zwane, who was clear about the type of striker the club needed to sign before the beginning of this season, to fit in with the Kaizer Chiefs way of playing. After he went back home, a couple of names were linked with the Naturena-based outfit, with time running out as the team did not have a single out-andout striker. And then, voila… in what could be described as somewhat of a change of heart by “10111”, BonfilsCaleb Bimenyimana was snapped up on a two-year deal by Chiefs, with a further one-year option. That was in mid-August, with three rounds of league action having been played, and most tellingly, just after the 4-0 humiliation by Sundowns in a game where the Soweto giants were as toothless as a 100-year-therefore, old man. The jury is, out on whether the club signed the Bujumbura-born marksman to avert a crisis, seeing he was available and games were coming in thick and fast, with no other striker deal in sight. As a consequence, one can say he had to work harder to convince the coach that he had indeed made the right decision, and although his first few appearances raised eyebrows about whether he was the real deal, the 25-year-old has been steadily improving and is becoming something of a nuisance to opposition defenders with his aggression and never-say-die attitude. He has played in countries such as Rwanda, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Kazakhstan, and is vastly experienced for his age having represented his country on 17 occasions, scoring four goals in the process, while he has also participated in the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup with Rwandan outfit Club Rayon Sport. But he would have already found out that nothing compares to wearing the Kaizer Chiefs jersey, especially as a frontman, and will need to keep consistency. Although he will be considered in some quarters as the accidental signing, with a perceived accidental goal celebration after netting his first strike for his new club, there is nothing accidental about his six goals so far, and one just gets a feeling there’s more to come from this beanpole Burundian.

Caleb’s calibre He’s given Chiefs a different dimension

Farouk Khan – Former Chiefs assistant

coach

“Look, he started off a bit slow in terms of him adjusting to his surroundings and his teammates. It’s always difficult when a player comes into a team that’s in the process of rebuilding. Initially, there were a lot of people who doubted his scoring ability, but I want to believe what ultimately helps him is that he’s constantly running around and is always in the thick of things. He has the DNA of a good number nine, but also a lot will depend on the kind of service he gets from the likes of Keagan Dolly and Yusuf Maart. He’ll only be as good as those supplying him are. I don’t think we should read too much into his hattrick of penalties though because Stellenbosch FC were their (own) worst enemy, if we are to be honest. But with that said, just putting the ball in the back of the net will surely boost his confidence tremendously going into the next games. But ja, disappointed in the last few games. But truth is, at Chiefs, you are as good as your last game, so he’ll need to constantly be on the score sheet. He’s obviously given Chiefs a different dimension to what they’ve had in the past, similar to what they had with Samir Nurkovic, who, unfortunately, after a great first to suggest that he’s the solution to Chiefs winning trophies is a little bit premature because Chiefs as a whole still needs to find their rhythm. From a technical perspective, still a lot of work to be done collectively. They need to get their combinations right.”

He sniffs danger well

Kingston Nkhatha – Former Chiefs striker

He might not have gotten an opportunity to wear the Kaizer Chiefs jersey

after signing for the club in 2002, owing to a knee injury, but Sydney Moshikaro remains one of the best strikers of his generation, having turned out for the likes of Real Rovers, Ria Stars and Dynamos. “I was signed during the time the World Cup was taking place

LA: Let’s talk more cheerful stuff then… Bimenyimana.

SM: What I’ve observed about him is that… first thing, I think in South Korea & Japan, and when I arrived at Chiefs, I got injured and then I did an operation, which took

me nine months to heal from. Unfortunately, because it was a knee, it just got worse over time and I eventually ended up quitting,” he reflects. Soccer Laduma caught up with him to discuss Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana.

Lunga Adam: Heita, Syd! Being a former striker yourself, what have you made of Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana’s impact at Kaizer Chiefs so far?

Sydney Moshikaro: I must be honest in admitting that I have not had time to watch Kaizer Chiefs games live this season, but fortunately enough, I’ve always made sure to go back and rewatch a game from the weekend just to see how the team did. You know the story, these days

it’s a struggle to watch our football.

LA: You mean DStv Premiership matches are sleeping tablets of sorts?

SM: Ha, ha, ha! Ja, our game, it will make you drunker. You must always watch it when you are drinking so that you don’t get bored. But what can we say? We must be patriotic. When you criticise, they will say you are jealous. So, we will always sugarcoat things. It’s really sad because the countries that were way, way behind us in terms of football are now better than us. I’m sure even if they can say we must play Kazakhstan, they will beat us. Or Moldova. he’s brave because coming to a new team and to start taking penalties, it shows that he’s brave. Secondly, I think he is more of a goalscorer than a striker that can link play because if you check his first goal, I think it was a cross from (Kgaogelo) Sekgota, the way he finished it you can see that he’s more of a target man. Even the header against Swallows FC showed as much. You can see he’s more of a box striker where if he can stay inside the box and he gets regular better service, I think he can do it. But most of the time, when he tries

to play… let’s say if he drops and tries to link play, you can see that hayi, no, his strong characteristics are more on aerial than on the feet.

LA: Don’t you think it’s been about trying to prove something to coach Arthur Zwane though? If you remember, he was on trial for a while at the Soweto giants during pre-season and word that came out is that he didn’t impress, so he had to go back home. Then all of a sudden, shortly after the start of the season, he was handed a contract. Maybe he’s trying to show that Chiefs should never had doubts about him in the first place. SM: Ja, it might be like that, but even though maybe he wants to prove (something to) the coach, it takes someone with guts to do that because at the end of the day, if he takes those penalties and misses, then it means now it’s going to make things easy for the coach if the coach didn’t want him in the first place. But because of his braveness, I don’t know if maybe he took those penalties and missed, how he was going to react after that. But now because he scored those penalties, I think he’s got confidence. I don’t know whether maybe he started pre-season with them or… because I hear the coach sayfitness ing his match is coming okay. So maybe when he came here, he was not fit.

LA: Is the hype around him after the Stellenbosch FC game worth it though? Someone else might say yes, he scored a hat-trick, but it was ‘just penalties’.

SM: Whoever played football will know that it’s not easy to score a penalty. You’ve got too much pressure taking a penalty. Even a free kick is way better because a free kick no one expects you to score, so you just play it. But a penalty, everything stands still and then you are asking yourself, “If I miss, people will say how can he miss a penalty?” It’s the most pressured moment of football. So, it’s not as easy as people think, that ah, he was just alone, he was going to score (anyway). Credit must be given to him. We have seen the best players missing penalties, but to score three penalties, and in all penalties the keeper didn’t have a chance to save one, is huge. Those three penalties were well-taken. So, credit must be given to him. We all know that penalties are part of the game. We’ve heard people saying penalty this, penalty

that, (but) that’s part of football.

LA: The challenge now will be to make sur he doesn’t become predictable, because even a player like Samir Nurkovic had a blistering start to PSL life, but fizzled out as time went on. How does the Burundian prevent that from happening to him?

SM: I don’t know… With Nurkovic, I think most of the time injuries slowed him down. But it will depend… I think sometimes it normally depends on the overall play of the team because if… for instance, in Nurkovic’s situation, he started like a house on fire the first season and then the second season the teams started planning (for him). But if his teammates don’t come to the party, then it’s easy for the opposition to close him down. So, it’s going to be the situation – if Kaizer Chiefs players don’t come to the party, then once they figure him out and close him down, then it’s chaile (game over). But with teams like… let’s say for example (Mamelodi) Sundowns, even if you can

close down Peter Shalulile, but you know that Themba Zwane, Thapelo Morena or whoever can come and score. So, you’ve got difficulty in trying to close one player down because you need to close all of them down.

LA: Taking a bit of a dig at Orlando Pirates, and in view of the

upcoming Soweto Derby, Amakhosi supporter Machaka says, “Even our rivals are worried now, thanks to Caleb.”

SM: Ha, ha, ha. When is the derby?

LA: It’s on October 29.

SM: Hey, hey, another big game! As for Pirates, if they don’t change the way they are running the team, where this season they sign 10 players, next season 10 go, (then) they sign 20 players… Haikhona, can’t do that!

LA: In closing, do you think there’s more to come from Bimenyimana?

SM: Ja, I think his good start has done a favour for him, so he can only build on from what he’s done in his first five games. I think his confidence is high now, so it’s up to him to make sure that he keeps on scoring. But I’m one person who normally says let players be consistent first before we can talk a lot about them because sometimes we tend to praise players early, only to find that it was a fluke or something. Let’s see his consistency, let’s see how long he is going to keep on scoring.

LA: Thanks for your time, legend. SM: Thank you very much, Lunga. ❐