The nowhere man arrives
A meteoric rise for 34-year-old coaching whizz kid Thabo Senong
A YEAR ago Thabo Senong was coaching an academy team, Sunward Park High School, at the Gauteng Future Champions tournament. Today he is the assistant coach of a Bafana Bafana team that qualified unbeaten this week for it’s first major tournament since 2008.
It’s been a meteoric rise for SA’s 34-year-old coaching whizz kid, who a few months ago was known in top coaching circles but only barely to the public.
Senong, a product of the many courses run in SA over the past halfdecade, is a local following the global trend of coaches who have not played at the top. Coaches trained to coach, in the same way chartered accountants are trained to account.
“In world football the coaches excelling — your Jose Mourinhos, Andre Villas Boases — are technicians, not players who have played the game,” Senong said this week.
“Steve Komphela is not just an explayer — he’s a technician. After his playing days he went through coaching courses.”
Senong began coaching school and amateur teams in his native Pimville, Soweto, at 20.
“As a teen player, I was always team captain. I forgot about playing and started improving the potential of the kids around me,” he said.
He was roped into Pirates’ development at 26. At 31 he was the youngest to qualify for the SA Football Association’s first Level 3 Pro Licence course in 2011 and he attracted the attention of SA’s top coaches.
Senong coached Sunward, partnering Patrick Vieira’s Diambars academy, and was roped in by Pitso Mosimane to Mamelodi Sundowns’ development. He was head-hunted by Shakes Mashaba as assistant for the SA under-17s, then under-20s.
“That was where we started to recruit players like Rivaldo Coetzee, Nhlakanipho Ntuli and Fagrie Lakay — the team that won the under-17 Zone 6 in Zambia,” Senong said.
“Shakes gave me absolute authority to scout. We brought players in, worked with them and won the Council of Southern African Foot- ball Associations under-20 tournament. Shakes realised this is the assistant he can always take along.”
Senong has achieved his Confederation of African Football A-licence, the highest qualification on the continent.
“I also went through the Dutch KNVB course, just to see how other federations do it. And I attended Barcelona fitness trainer Raymond Verheijen’s periodisation courses to keep up to date with the latest trends in modern football.”
Senong has brought his dynamic training drills and encyclopaedic player database to a Bafana brains trust that spans three generations.
“Shakes Mashaba is a legendary coach, but you also need fresh ideas. That’s where I can make my input. And you need a coach with a PSL
For SA football to improve we must become African champions
background, and that’s where [Senong’s fellow assistant] Owen Da Gama comes in.”
Mashaba, who is clearly progressive in his ideas on youth, has brought a breath of fresh air. SA had been at such a low that the coach, with little to lose, could afford a more adventurous approach.
Very few coaches would have had the guts to play a 17-year-old — Rivaldo Coetzee — in the key away game against group leaders Congo. Senong said the decision made sense to the technical team.
“Of the two defenders — Tefu Mashamaite, who’s doing extremely well for Chiefs, and Rivaldo — check the number of international games they’ve played. Rivaldo, at junior level, holds a number of caps — that makes him an international player.
“For South African football to improve SA must become African champions. That’s where we’re exposing youngsters and balancing them with experienced names like Anele Ngcongca and Reneilwe Letsholonyane, who have played in the World Cup. We’re hungry to bring back the glory days of 1996.”