It will be the bes t choice
On developments at Maritzburg United
At the end of the day, the club has made the decision to let John Maduka and his technical team go. I think now they will potentially go for a coach that has been ther e befor e and someone who under stands the cultur e of the club and the player s. The coach can only choose his line-up based on what the transfer budget given to him is. These ar e testing times and a lot of clubs ar e investing in academy players with the hope of producing good senior players because that is mor e cost-effective. And a club like Mar itzbur g United has had a lot of history of developing good players over the last five to 10 years. They gave a lot of players opportunities and those player s did well. Look at when Fadlu Davids was there as a coach and they r eached the Nedbank Cup final, that was done with relatively unknown players at the time and it wor ked. Maybe the club is now thinking, ‘Let’s tr y that again and see if we can pr oduce the same results.’ If they can produce another Lebo Maboe, Fortune Makaringe, Siphesihle Ndlovu and Bongokuhle Hlongwane, can that wor k? Can we do that again this season? It’s a r isky thing to do when you tr y to r eplicate what you have done befor e. Pr obably they will want to go for someone who under stands the club because if they go the opposite of that, it will be r isky because that coach will need time. That will be risky considering the position they find themselves in on the league table. A new coach that will come in will have six weeks to wor k with the team befor e the nex t game, to tr y to tweak and get them into a better position. Look, we’ve seen the mer r y-go-r ound of coaches in the PSL for many seasons and by now we shouldn’t be sur pr ised when we see one coach moving to another club. It’s always been that way and it’s becoming a nor m now.
On the previous generation ofplayers
What made the generation of Bandile Shandu, Makar inge, Ndlovu, Maboe and Hlongwane successful was because ther e was a lot of continuity at the time. Ther e was a gr eat deal of under standing between the club’s then MultiChoice (now DStv) Diski
Challenge team and the senior team. Ther e was the cultur e at the club fr om the development, Diski and senior teams wher e player s could easily fit in when they wer e pr omoted. Fadlu did well with the young players then and they have a pretty young squad now. I think they have one of the youngest squads in the team, in terms of the average age, and if it is Fadlu that they are going for, it will be the best choice because he has a lot of ex per ience of gr ooming youngsters and doing well with the team. He did well at the club when I was ther e as a player , when he was Er nst Middendor p’s assistant, and he has wor k ethic. I don’t see Mar itzbur g United in the same pr ecar ious position come end of Febr uar y. When I was a player at Maritzburg, Fadlu was still an assistant to Middendor p and they did well together . As much as a lot of people ar e not fans of Middendor p, he picked his assistants well. Fadlu is a well-balanced coach. Some coaches are good man-managers, some are good tacticians and some are workaholics, nothing else, and Fadlu knows how to find balance between all those things. He is a players’ coach, tactically astute and he can analyse games, see weaknesses in opposition teams and pr epar e well for them. He is also a wor kaholic. He is a well-balanced coach and that is what br ought him success at all the clubs that he has wor ked for . I’m not saying success in terms of winning tr ophies, I’m saying success because cer tain clubs have differ ent objectives and he has met all of those objectives.
On the World Cup break
A lot of clubs will feel that this is the r ight time to change coaches because of the long br eak, but the top five clubs have differ ent objectives in the nex t six weeks. They are going to look at strengthening player s and look at what they need to do to get into the top thr ee. The teams fighting r elegation will look at personnel in the management depar tment and some in the playing department. When Maritzburg United make the announcement of whoever their coach will be, this will pr obably be their best time. I mean, they have alr eady r eleased Maduka with his entir e technical team, so it’s not as if ther e is a possibility for his assistant to take over as the coach. They basically don’t have a technical team and they will be making an announcement and I wish them all the best. They are a team with a lot of histor y and we don’t want to see them in this situation. The club and the management is aware of what needs to be done and wher e to strengthen. If they make the right signings with a coach and player s, there is always an opportunity to climb out of the r elegation. The PSL has always been unpredictable – all you need is to win a few games and be consistent. Look at Chippa United, they went fr om languishing in the bottom of the log to jumping into the Top Eight with thr ee to four wins. Just a little bit of consistency with a good run of form and you could see them (Mar itzbur g) jump. I genuinely feel that they ar e capable of getting into the Top Eight.
On taking a leafout of Stellies ’book
Mar itzbur g United has good young players and losing those players to bigger clubs with money is something that you can never stop. We have that situation all around the world, whether it’s England or Spain. That’s the unfortunate position clubs with no sponsor s find themselves in. Clubs like these, I believe, need to have a coach for a long-ter m per iod, like Stellenbosch FC. Steve Bar ker has been ther e for five year s and the club said, ‘Look, we know we can always be in the Top Eight, but when an oppor tunity comes to sell a player, we have to sell because we don’t have a sponsor , but we have conveyor belt of player s coming through.’ If Maritzburg United get Fadlu, they must tie him down for five years. Maybe they will never have an opportunity to win the league, but they can be successful in other departments. If they can sell maybe two player s, they can pr omote thr ee player s fr om the DDC. Have that longevity and r e-invest the money they make into the development so that they can be sustainable. If they can steal a page fr om Stellenbosch’s book, they can achieve longevity.
Shu-Aib Walters, Former Maritzburg United goalkeeper