NEW DAWN FOR MUHSIN, TINKLER
COACH OOZES CONFIDENCE
NEWLY appointed Cape Town City FC coach Eric Tinkler says he will draw on past experiences to build a successful club in the Mother City.
Speaking to Sowetan shortly after his first training session with the club yesterday, the former Orlando Pirates coach was oozing confidence despite facing what he calls a “massive challenge”.
“We will be ready. We have eight weeks to prepare ourselves and what I saw at training is very, very good,” said Tinkler, who returned from a holiday in Portugal over the weekend.
He said the club currently had 14 players in their books.
The 45-year-old said coaching Bidvest Wits and Pirates was challenging for different reasons but believes he can draw on the positives that could benefit his new club.
“The time I took over as Wits’ interim coach (in 2007), we were facing relegation but we managed to survive and when I took over from Vladimir Vermezovic (at Pirates, in December 2014) we were 12th and we finished fourth. We also had a poor start last season, but we managed to get ourselves out of that situation to finish in the top eight,” he said.
“At Wits, we were a bit like gypsies and we didn’t have a place to train. We created that facility at Sturrock Park and we created the academy ... that was a challenge on its own. Cape Town City FC is pretty much similar to that.
“So I can take that experience that I had at Wits and apply it here. This is a club that is going to have a lot of belief in youth and that is something we used to have at Wits.
“With Pirates, I was coaching the biggest club in SA, and once you coach at that level there is a lot more maturity. I think I have matured as a coach. The chairman (Irvin Khoza) showed belief and faith in me in giving me that opportunity to coach Pirates.
“I will always be thankful to him [but] now it’s about me focusing on the job at hand, which is coaching Cape Town City FC,” he said.