Make or break for Solinas
Giovanni Solinas will probably come out of today’s Telkom Knockout Cup semifinal where they host Orlando Pirates at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium either a hero or villain.
Giovanni Solinas coach of Kaizer Chiefs (Picture: Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix)
It may seem a bit unfair that Solinas might find himself under pressure and having to bear with the “Solinas must go” chants should he fail to guide his team to a win this afternoon. But this is a grim reality that the Italian has to live with.
His life at Naturena could be really hard should he lose at Moses Mabhida Stadium this afternoon – as this would be his second successive defeat to their bitter rivals. Solinas was on the losing end on October 27 as the Buccaneers ran over his Amakhosi side and won 2-1.
“We took the lessons from the last derby. It taught us that we need a fighting spirit and concentration,” he said during a media conference this week. Solinas has been at Amakhosi for just over four months but he is expected to perform miracles and turn the underachieving team into world beaters.
Fair? Probably not. But Solinas knew what he was signing himself into when he took over the team who had gone three seasons without any trophy. It was either the Italian mentor is oblivious, ignorant or just super confident on himself as he didn’t seem to care when this fact was put to him, replying with a “why do you have to be negative.”
Solinas said he was happy that his team were improving on the mistakes they had done in the previous derby – which is a game which seems was his own measuring tool for how far he has gone with his mission at Naturena.
“The fighting spirit and our concentration has improved and we did not concede a goal in our last three games. We will be much better in this game.”
Another factor that Solinas was happy about was that he had all his trusted soldiers available at training this week, unlike the last time where his star player Khama Billiat only had one training session with the team before making his Soweto Derby debut.
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