City reserves coach bemoans SA players’ shaky grasp of basic skills
‘Doing basics is better than the extraordinary’
Cape Town City reserves coach Ian Taylor says the problem with SA players is that they tend to want to do the extraordinary instead of excelling with the basic principles of football.
Taylor’s side has been steady in the DStv Diski Challenge this season, kicking it off with back-to-back wins against defending champions Stellenbosch and Kaizer Chiefs.
The trainer applauded his players for getting the six points and credited them for executing what they had been working on during the preseason. “Credit to the players for the hard work they have [put] out in the preseason,” he said.
The reserve league is meant to polish up players to be ready for the professional ranks. However, coaches are having to coach basics that were supposed to have been learnt during the formative stages of the players. Even some of the players who are playing in the professional ranks struggle with certain basics.
Taylor shared his views on how the lack of grasping football basics has set back the standard of SA football.
“Maintaining the standard is always a challenge for SA players, they want to do the extraordinary instead of doing the simple thing consistently. That’s the biggest challenge for our players,” said Taylor.
“We coach 18-, 19-, and 20year-olds things that should have been taught when they were 12, 13 or 14 years old. This is the problem with football in the country, our players don’t get the foundations of proper development.
“With coaches sometimes at this level of development, it gets neglected because they don’t want to do those simple things, everything is about tactics and formation and all these types of things,” he said.
Taylor’s City Colts will be back in action tomorrow when they take on Orlando Pirates at the Lucas Masterpieces
Moripe Stadium in Tshwane at 12pm.
Reserve league fixtures: Tomorrow: Golden Arrows v Marumo Gallants (Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium, 10 am); Royal AM v AmaZulu (Mpumalanga Stadium, KZN 10 am); TS Galaxy v Mamelodi Sundowns (Lucas Moripe Stadium, 10 am); Orlando Pirates v Cape Town City, Lucas Moripe, 12 pm); Stellenbosch v Richards Bay (Idas Valley Sports Ground, 12pm).
Sunday: Swallows v SuperSport United (Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium, 10am); Sekhukhune United v Maritzburg United (Tsakane Stadium, 10am); Kaizer Chiefs v Chippa United (Lucas Moripe Stadium, 12pm).