The professional game in South Africa will surprise you, ouens.
I’m sure Mamelodi Sundowns are clear favourites to win the PSL title again this season, but I was still very much undecided on who would be relegated.
And then boom, five league matches into the new season and three coaches get the marching orders.
Just like that, Chippa United have fired Clinton Larsen, Cavin Johnson has been let go by AmaZulu and Black Leopards’ Lionel Soccoia walked the plank.
Now some South African football fans can be really unreasonable in their expectation of their favourite teams.
Okay, let me paint a picture of what I mean.
Back in 2013, believe it or not, Mamelodi Sundowns fans booed Pitso Mosimane regularly and even whistled for substitutions.
This after the former Sundowns striker was barely a year in the job and had actually helped turn the fortunes of what was a struggling overpaid group of players the season before.
PRESSURE: Pitso Mosimane. Photo: Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix.
Mosimane had managed to get the team out of relegation trouble and up to ninth when he was appointed in the 2012/13 campaign, before winning the league the following season after taking charge of his first pre-season.
Two years later, after guiding the club to the league and Nedbank Cup titles, fans were once again irritated because the team had started the 2015/16 season slowly.
There were threats from some “influential” supporters, but he survived that too and they won the league and CAF Champions League by the end of 2016, believe it or not.
Bra Pitso is obviously more fortunate than the coaches who lost their jobs this week.
At Sundowns, there’s money for the coach to get the best players for what he wants to build and do. And the good thing is that Bra Pitso and his players deliver silverware as expected regularly.
Now that leaves me wondering if some of our fans are this unreasonable, what about the owners who are making such crazy decision so early in the season without a back-up plan?
How good does a Chippa Mpengesi think his Chippa really, if he can decide the man who brought stability to his club can no longer be trusted after five games of a new campaign?
I happened to listen to Ta Rob Marawa’s show on Metro FM where Duran Francis, the local PE man installed as interim coach, was explaining how they had been working behind the scenes for the future of the club with now-dismissed Larsen.
Francis said he was approached by Mpengesi to help groom the next generation of homegrown players and the former Ajax Cape Town defender went into some detail about how they were trying to get that done before his senior was fired.
Mind you, there’s also Daine Klate, another PE man, who’s work with the MultiChoice Diski Challenge team was promising since taking over this season.
So there was something being done for the long term, but somehow the Chilli Boyz’s chairman felt it was okay to break that all up after just five games?
SENT PACKING: Coach Cavin Johnson. Photo: BackpagePix.
Meanwhile in eThekwini (Durban), AmaZulu have also decided that Cavin Johnson’s time is up at the club.
This is the same coach that got the club to a respectable 11th position despite being docked six points for a boardroom decision last season.
He didn’t moan or kick and scream or walk from the job because of about how management’s error cost his side the points.
Yet, when it was time to show some support for the coach, the people in that same AmaZulu boardroom thought it was okay to get rid of the guy.
The saddest part was that the man couldn’t even be open about how he got to learn of his dismissal.
He said he would only be ready to talk about it in about a week.
How bad must his situation have been handled for him not to even be able to talk about it? This for a man who has had a hand in giving a platform to some of the country’s top players over the years?
We’ve seen these kind of stories all around the PSL over the years. Even at the best clubs and it’s a real concern if you ask me.
I won’t blame guys for not considering coaching in the PSL if this is how things are done.