‘They don’t have the team at heart’, Katsande on Chiefs players

Former Kaizer Chiefs stalwart Willard Katsande has questioned whether the current generation have the burning desire to turn the club’s fortunes around and write their own history.

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The former hard-tackling midfielder was part of the team that last won silverware under Stuart Baxter in 2014/15 season where they ended the campaign with the MTN8 and the league title.

Since then, it has been a painful nine-year drought for the Soweto giants and Katsande believes the current crop of players need to realise the prestige that comes with playing for Amakhosi. 

“I’m worried about the current players and I’m challenging them to look at themselves,” the Zimbabwean said to Thabiso Mosia on Radio 2000.

“When they look around at the village and there are still pictures of us who last won something, are they not intimidated by that? Do they not feel why does the club have pictures of Shabba (Siphiwe Tshabalala), Yeye (Reneilwe Letsholonyane) and Katsande on the wall and why can’t I put my own pictures there?

“I feel like they don’t have the team at heart and they are not feeling the importance of the 16 million of Kaizer Chiefs supporters. What I normally did when I played for Kaizer Chiefs, I went to Soweto and listened to that old man who would tell me ‘please be there for us’. When you get to training, you’re going to work hard saying I don’t want to disappoint that old man and that old lady.

“So they need to go into the community those Chiefs players so that they can see what it means to represent Chiefs. When they go to FNB Stadium, see thousands watching football, they forget that there are millions who are watching from home and want the team to perform. If they can take it to their head to say ‘if I run 5km, can I double it to 10km so that I can give my all for the team’. I wasn’t the best but no Kaizer Chiefs fan doubted my commitment.”

Katsande also revealed the secret to their success when they claimed the league in a season where Mamelodi Sundowns finished second behind them.

“We were blessed that we had a father figure in Stuart Baxter because he explained everybody’s role,” he added.

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“If you look at our squad then, we also had a lot of internationals. With all due respect but there is a difference between an international player and a normal one because internationals get the message quicker and run with it.

“Even the last time we won the league, we won 11 games by a 1-0 scoreline and that wasn’t a mistake. It was a tactic where we knew that football has evolved and set-plays are very important in the modern game and most of our goals came from there and then we closed shop.”