BBK UNPLUGGED
Komphela must man up
THERE is a belief among my black folk of this beloved nation of ours.
Let me hasten to clarify that there is no empirical evidence to prove this case with certainty.
But my people are convinced by a watertight credence that sea water has special cleansing and or healing effects.
A spell cast on you? A niggling ailment that won’t go away? A bout of bad luck? It’s all water off the back of a duck. Sea water will sort it out.
I don’t know if the magic is in the sand. Or the salt.
With summer in full swing, people from the interior flock to the coast for festive fun.
Stop any bus, taxi or private car full of merry makers leaving any of the beach fronts for inspection.
Without fail, you will discover containers of various shapes and sizes filled to the brim with sea water and a dash of sand.
Someone said to me Kaizer Chiefs coach Steve Komphela may be in need of a splash of sea water plus a spill of goat’s blood to appease his ancestors who are against him crowning his Premier Soccer League coaching career with a trophy.
This clairvoyant, a Chiefs fan, claimed sea water seemed to have worked for Roger de Sa, who won his first trophy since 2010 after falling in numerous finals with Orlando Pirates.
Chiefs’s defeat at the feet of Mamelodi Sundowns in the Telkom Knockout cup final on Wednesday served to confirm the song Komphela’s detractors have sung from day one.
“Chiefs is too big a club for him. He is good enough for Dynamos, Free State Stars and the likes. Not Chiefs.”
The anti-Komphela crowd upped the ante when they crowed that Chiefs must cut their losses and chop him for losing successive cup finals. It exposes a lack of understanding of Chiefs chairman Kaizer Motaung’s modus operandi.
King Kaizer is not one to fire for the sake of firing and sticks to the letter of the contract.
He crosses the Ts and dots the Is of a standard two-years plus oneyear option for extension coaching contracts. Let’s return to this notion of Komphela being rubbish.
I refuse to accept that a rubbish coach can reach two cup finals in three months. Never.
However, Komphela will struggle to convince even his staunchest supporters about his choice of a Morgan Gould and Lorenzo Gordinho central defensive pairing.
There is no beef with Siyanda Xulu, the coach confirmed to this columnist last month.
But many were left bewildered when Xulu and Ivan Bukenya were confined to the bench.
Many will continue asking what crime has George Maluleka committed to who, when and why? More so because those selected ahead of him, Pule Ekstein and Lucky Baloyi, were last spotted during the singing of the national anthem.
The Naturena natives are restless. There are sections who feel the senior players are showing signs of being spent forces.
The belief is that they gave their best in Stuart Baxter’s three seasons that delivered a bounty of two league championships plus the Nedbank Cup and MTN8 titles.
All this put together presents a glorious opportunity for Komphela to build his own side.
Komphela must know the honeymoon is over. He can’t afford to have feet of clay or his time will end in decay.
He cannot let this glorious opportunity go to waste. This is crunch time for his career. He has to go big or go home. He has to stop the victim mentality and focus less on the fans. Fans are finicky. It is their job to find fault and vent their frustrations when the chips are down.
Succeed and he will forever be hailed as a hero who breathed new life into Chiefs and revived floundering fortunes.
Fail and he will be remembered as the big gamble Motaung took and it never paid off.
Calls for Baxter’s return are in cuckadoloo land. There’s no guarantee that he will bring the same glory as before.
They must look no further than London. Jose Mourinho’s second spell at Chelsea was supposed to be a match made in heaven? They’ve been chowed like a cheap Chelsea bun. There is a belief among many football folk that the new moniker for the currently not so special one is now The Sacked One!