This is what we’ve been missing

“It is the heart of that man that I always admire. He has a heart of God.”

In 2018, Wedson Nyirenda achieved what seemed impossible by leading Baroka FC to success in the Telkom Knockout. In so doing, the Zambian became the first coach to lead a club from Limpopo to cup triumph in the PSL, a record that still stands. Following his resignation from the side in 2019, he hasn’t been involved with any outfit in the PSL, although was linked with the then vacant job at Swallows FC last season. Soccer Laduma’s Masebe Qina tracked the former Kaizer Chiefs striker down and located him in Mozambique, as he talks about how he really felt to see his former side going down to the second tier. Nyirenda also reserves special words of endearment for one Kaizer Motaung. Read on…

Masebe Qina: Coach, what have you been up to since leaving Baroka FC?

Wedson Nyirenda: Well, right now I’m in Mozambiq ue, coaching a club called Ferroviario da Beira. It is the same team that I was with in 2016 when we won our first-ever league title, which is something that (had) never happened since the club was formed in 1924. The club was 92 years old when we delivered their first-ever league title. If you remember, when I left this club back then, I went to coach the national team of Zambia. From the national team, I went to Baroka and from there, I went back home. They came back for me, and they’ve been asking me to come and finish the project. Right now, we have a new team and we are a team of young players. I found them with 17 players when I joined the team in January. They were all young, ex cept for one player who was with me in 2016 and he is still with us now and is the captain. So, the project for Ferroviario is about building a new team and growing it and (to) start selling those players, probably in Europe. I have a one-year contract with them, up to December. It remains to be seen if I’ll still come back after that. As I’m speaking, I am in Maputo with the team and we are involved in the CAF Confederation Cup. Last weekend (8 October), we beat Diables Noirs from Congo Brazzaville 2-1 and these young players have been showing some character.

MQ: At Baroka, you did the unthinkable, leading the club to Telkom Knockout success in 2018. Is the PSL now a closed chapter in your coaching career?

WN: My brother, it has always been with me that wherever I go and whatever club that I’m with, I always lift them up. It is all by God’s grace that I always do the unthinkable. I left the Telkom Knockout trophy with (club chairman) Mr (Khurishi) Mphahlele and the Baroka family. It was my second homecoming when I coached Baroka because I had initially arrived in Mzansi in 1994 when I came to (Kaizer) Chiefs. You know the story, what I did at Chiefs, so Mzansi is my home. So, coming back to Mzansi wouldn’t be an issue for me and any time that I have a better offer and project to come there, I will do so. I’m open to coming back to Mzansi anytime.

MQ: How did you feel when the Limpopo side were relegated?

WN: (Sighs) From my playing days up to now as a coach, I don’t believe in burning bridges. I love to always leave the bridges intact and that’s why each time I coach a team, I become part of the family of that club and the players are so attached to me and I’m so attached to them. I feel that even if I leave the club, I should be able to be of help to them whenever they need me. When I saw that things were not okay for the club last season, because I saw the way it was going, I knew where I had started from with the team and I knew where I was going, so I felt bad. I think if I had not left Baroka, by now it could have been a highly formidable club which could be competing at the highest level. I believe that what we should be doing now in football is to spell out our objectives and stand by those objectives with the things that are needed to achieve those objectives. Club owners sometimes will say that they want to build a new team and want to reach there, but when they say that, you should know that it is including you because you will be a casualty one day because as you will win some games, you will lose some. The only important thing is if the team is sustained, you must keep things moving and correct those things that are giving you problems. But with us, there is this thing of not trying to find solutions, but we just think of firing the coach and that’s the only solution that most of the clubs think of. If I can make an ex ample about Arsenal, they were a laughing stock last season and even the season before, and everybody was calling for the blood of (Mikel) Arteta. But the management said, “We are going to keep him.” What is happening this season? They are reaping what they’ve been sowing. It’s the same young players that he was with last season, and they worked so hard and have now reached a stage where they are mature and their mental strength has changed. They now understand the philosophy of Arsenal and they have to push. This is what we’ve been missing in most of our clubs in African football. We want things today. We plant today and we want to reap today. So, I felt bad when I saw that they were on the last stroke because I had been with Mr Mphahlele and looking at how passionate that man is about the game and the community of Ga-Mphahlele, I just feel bad. I just pray that the team comes back q uickly from Division One so that they can continue building from Mr Mphahlele’s dream.

MQ: Many would have thought that you’d have gotten another PSL coaching opportunity by now…

WN: There was one or two clubs that came through, but I was not particularly pleased with some of the things that were discussed. One thing that you have to understand is that one can be the best coach ever, but one of the most important things that coaches do wrongly is rushing to clubs without checking. The two things that coaches should check are the environment and the atmosphere. You must go to an environment where you are going to impact and be able adapt. You must check how the atmosphere of the place and the people that you are going to work with is. In Africa, we are always at the same spot, you will get to a club where they’ll say, “This is your assistant” when you mention that you need to come with your backroom staff with at least two guys you’ve previously worked with and have an understanding (with). At the end of the day, you would realise that the assistant that you are being offered is just the FBI for the president of the club or someone like that. I beg all my African fellow coaches that before we endeavour into getting into clubs, we should first look at the environment and the atmosphere. We tend to forget about those and we look at how much the money is and things like that.

MQ: In December last year, you were linked with Swallows FC.

WN: Truly and sincerely speaking, there were discussions between myself, my managers and the Swallows management through chairman David Mogashoa and president (at the time, Panyaza) Lesufi. We chatted through a conference call and they were very interested in me coming down to Mzansi. But one thing (that was a concern) for me was

that the team was in a relegation battle. I was in Zambia when they called me and I thought about it and I knew that for me to come, I would have to first sit outside without being on the bench because of the rules and so on. The laws are laws and it would have taken time for me to be directly involved the way I would have wanted, and the team was already in (the) relegation zone and needed somebody who could help q uickly, hence they went for Dylan (Kerr). Dylan was already in South Africa and they settled for him, but they did call me to inform me about their decision because they also understood that applying for permits and all those things would have hampered my progress. I thought that was good for the club, especially looking at the fact that they survived relegation in the end.

MQ: You spoke about your spell with Chiefs as a player. What did you think of the club’s decision to appoint ex-player Arthur Zwane as head coach?

WN: First and foremost, I should mention here that I always have great respect for Ntate Kaizer Motaung. Since my playing days, he took me as his own son. Out of football, he would call me to his door and he would just start teaching me about the business world. He would just tell me stories about business and the future. That made me feel the sense of belonging to Kaizer Chiefs and that’s why I always call him Ntate Motaung because he taught me a lot of things.

MQ: Indeed, a great leader and human being who is admired by many for his immense and selfless contribution to the game.

WN: True, my brother. You see where the Village is today (in Naturena)? There was only one house there when I first arrived at Chiefs. It was a five-bedroom house and the rest was the bush. That’s where I stayed when I first arrived, in that guesthouse. I found Eshele Botende there and we stayed together, and I just forgot the name of our mama who was there and taking care of us, the maid of the house. I was there for two weeks, and (then) I moved to my own place in Sandton. Before I left, Mr Motaung came to visit me there and he said, “Let me show you something, let’s go out.” So, we walked around the bush where that Village and the grounds are now. That whole place was a bush and he told me that it belonged to him and that in five to 10 years’ time, I would not recognise it. He told me that he had big plans about the area. So, from that time already, he was teaching me big things about life. He told me to never look at current situation but into the future. It is the heart of that man that I always admire. He has a heart of God. He has given the chance to coaches who’ve coached at Chiefs, and I’ve never seen a club that is so patient like Chiefs. There’ve been coaches there who would win games, but you would find the man q uiet. You will never find him all over the place and talking about the coaches. You’ll never find him in radio stations or anywhere and talking about the coaches. No! He knows where to address those issues and that’s inside the club. He is a former professional player and he knows how to handle such situations. He has given the young man Arthur to coach Chiefs and the team is (going) in the right direction. Yes, they’ve lost a few games and didn’t start very well, but the team is getting up there and has

been moving up the log.

MQ: Correct.

WN: My brother Steve Komphela was given the opportunity there and we saw good football played by Chiefs. Unfortunately, it is a club that demands a lot and if you don’t win a trophy in a season, that is not considered good enough. I think the club hasn’t won a trophy for six years or so now and no matter what you are building now, very few people will see it and talk good because the focus is on winning trophies.

MQ: Legend, on that winning note, that’s all the time we have. Hope to see you back in Mzansi soon.

WN: Thank you, my brother, and God bless you.

Guess who’s back, back again, for a third week! Entertain us some more, good Sir… There is actually something that happened to me while I was in Cape Town. I was playing for Chippa United and we were training at Philippi Stadium. We started playing 11 versus 11 and you know that it can get physical and you know Capetonians can get physical. I got into a one-versus-one tussle with one of the guys. He got in front of me and he elbowed me. He hit my teeth out, bro. To this day, people think I am from Cape Town because of my accent. I am not from Cape Town! It’s just that my teeth were knocked out. So, obviously the pronunciation of certain things won’t sound the same. Capetonians don’t have teeth in front, and since I am walkI ing around with false teeth, sound as Capetonian as they come, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that’s a funny thing about me…

All along we thought your love for fish and chips stole your teeth, ha, ha, ha. Tell us a bit more about this incident. After that, I started to get the name Benni McCarthy. They just started to call me Benni, ha, ha, ha. But the funny thing I was concerned about when he elbowed me was my gold tooth. I spit out my front teeth, but amazingly I did not worry about my teeth being out. I did not care about it. The only thing I was worried about was my gold tooth. I was worried if it was still there. When I realised that my gold tooth was still intact, that’s when I started caring about my front teeth being out. I was more concerned about my gold tooth than anything else, ha, ha, ha. The management paid the bill for me to get a new pair of teeth. I actually did not say anything. I called the team doctor aside and I went to the hospital and I got my teeth sorted out. “A kick in the teeth” gi venaw hole

new meaning! My former boss at Witbank Spurs, Themba Mafu, had a quiet personality, but behind that quietness, there was too much panic. So, he was the owner and coach of the team. The home games were the ones where he would usually panic. So, there was this one particular game, against Mbombela (United) – i twasa his own box and not eat our ice. That’ sa crucial game, you know how it is. Worst of crazy story I can share about my former all, it was a derby, so the man was panic chairman, Themba Mafu, ha, ha, ha. stations on the bench. It was like his high blood was going up, ha, ha, ha. He was shouting and throwing tantrums willy-nilly on the bench. There is this one thing that he would always do… He would take ice and then put it on his head. He would use so much ice that when we went into the dressing room, he was the one who was wet, more than the players, ha, ha, ha. That’s how much he would panic on the bench. He would also eat the ice, just because of the pressure, ha, ha, ha.

Eish, pressure’s the name of the game.

When we went into the dressing room, we would be looking for ice, but there wouldn’t be any because the man had been eating the ice the whole 45 minutes. From that day on, we decided that we would have a separate cooler box with i e, just for him, so at he would go to

Well, we’ve heard about players ‘eating ice’, in reference to being on the bench… but not the coach. Sounds

like it’s a whole lot of ice the man used looking at the fact that the team was never anywhere near to challenging for promotion.

I am telling you, it was a lot! If that man starts to panic, then it’s over for the ice. That’s why we came up with the plan to get him his own cooler, ha, ha, ha. But he never wanted a cooler. He was just laughing when we said we wanted to get him one. He refused to have his own cooler because he preferred to have the ice that was in our cooler, ha, ha, ha. Could you fight the man?

Not unless you wanted to leave the club, ha, ha, ha.

You can’t refuse. He is the owner and the coach. It was just a fun thing. We laughed about it because he preferred to use our ice. So, there was this other time at Witbank Spurs when we did not get paid. There was a struggle with money. There was even a time when the Players Union came in. They helped us out by buying KFC with bread and they made us take pictures with the bread and KFC. Eish, it was tough, my man.

The guys decided that enough was enough. So, whenever we went to Cape Town, there was a guy whom I think was involved in the team, but I can’t remember his name. So, every time we went to Cape Town, there would be a bonus that we would get from him. We noticed that every time we travelled to the Mother City, we would get an extra R1000 or R1200 each. It made a difference. So, the players decided that our new home games would be in Cape Town. When we played in Witbank, we did not care. We would only win when we went to Cape Town because that’s where we would get a bonus, ha, ha, ha. People out there think footballers are not smart, but we are. Footballers are accountants. Every time we went to Cape Town, we would win, and we knew we were going to get a bonus. That guy would come and you’d see the joy on the faces of the players. We started calling him our chairman. I think he was a shareholder in the team, ha, ha, ha.

Wow! Talk about a man you’d want to see at every given opportunity. We’re sure some of you even dreamt about the poor guy in your precious sleep. Money, money, money. Josh, let’s take a pause and return with more of the same next week. Thank you.