Why does it feel like AmaZulu owner Sandile Zungu is just another Chippa Mpengesi?
How and why would you fire Benni McCarthy if you are AmaZulu? They must be ding dong if they think they will get anybody better!
That Benni agreed to become the head coach of AmaZulu was a shock in itself. That they managed to convince Benni to join them said a lot about the ambitions of the club.
We all know Benni is a winner, he wouldn’t have taken on the AmaZulu project if Zungu didn’t present ambitions of winning.
Nobody expected Benni to turn things around the way he did when he came in halfway into last season.
Usuthu were in danger of relegation and struggling financially. Nobody that mattered was interested in going there anymore at the time.
Zungu came and bought the club from the Sokhela family, a takeover that was met with excitement because Mr Zungu is a celebrated and influential business leader.
His arrival was likened to Patrice Motsepe’s takeover of Mamelodi Sundowns. We all see what the mining magnate has done at Chloorkop.
The expectation was that Zungu Inc. would rejuvenate the ailing KZN club and bringing in a big fish like Benni was a long-term investment.
Bafana Bafana’s all-time top-scorer has only managed to stay on the job for a year and three months.
Zungu has now quickly changed from the ambitious businessman expected to bring in fresh energy to SA football, to becoming just another trigger-happy SA football club owner.
I don’t think he realised who Benni McCarthy was, and sadly for him he will soon learn that he had SA’s Golden Goose and he let it fly away.
There are very few more accomplished South African footballers than Benni McCarthy and sadly for Zungu he will find it hard to bring in another name bigger or more exciting than jersey number 17.
I don’t know what happened daily at AmaZulu, but I’d like to believe there was excitement from the players to spend time with a decorated player like Benni.
It would seem they believed they got the most of him that’s why they decided to let him go.
Mr Zungu made a big media thing about Benni’s departure, going as far as saying he didn’t believe they would have made the stop four.
So what? This campaign should’ve served as a reality check for AmaZulu's leadership.
Their rise was too quick and too soon. They didn’t have the team to sustain them through their first continental campaign and keep up with their domestic responsibilities.
Mr Zungu, however, for whatever reason, believes they are supposed to be doing better and decided not to even let the man finish the season at the club and before having showdown talks with him.
Benni is now free to join a club of his choice and there are plenty of owners who wish they could have a conversation with him.
He might be too outspoken for Orlando Pirates, where he is a former player and treble winner.
The leadership dynamics at the Buccaneers are too complicated for the type of person Benni is. I don't see him accepting the fact that Irvin Khoza would not be available for him and he’d have to talk to his son Nkosana or Floyd Mbele.
Then there's Kaizer Chiefs, a club he's a fan of and always had the ambition to play for.
Bobby Motaung told him he was too old when he wanted to join them and he joined Pirates instead and made his mission to stick it to them, and he scored against them in his first appearance at the Soweto Derby.
That's Benni, he's like Michael Jordan. He walks around with a chip on his shoulder and will use anything to fuel that burning desire to come out tops.
Chiefs offer him a chance to complete a childhood dream of being part of the Glamour Boys and an immediate chance to show AmaZulu they made a mistake.
I don’t understand how Mr Zungu doesn’t know that Benni is one of those players with a pre-written journey to greatness.
I mean, who else scores a shibobo against the best goalkeeper in the world, a few months after launching a song called "Shibobo"? That type of stuff only happens to and for Benni.
He's a man for big moments, that type of energy follows him everywhere. When Benni is around you, you just know something big will happen.
Maybe it’s time for Safa to become serious and show some real ambition by giving him a chance with the U23s and get them to the Olympics, and clearly make it known that he will take over from Hugo Broos.