Mashaba has his concerns about Sundowns’ coaching trio
A couple of weeks ago when former Cape Town City head coach Benni McCarthy was asked if he would mind being an assistant to his former coach and mentor Gavin Hunt, where the latter was rumoured to be on his way to coach Kaizer Chiefs, where he was later appointed, McCarthy’s answer went along the lines of; you cannot have two bulls in one kraal.
Steve Komphela coach of Golden Arrows (Photo by Philip Maeta/Gallo Images)
The former Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana striker even went as far as saying European powerhouse coaches Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola would never work together. Well, Mamelodi Sundowns seemingly do not subscribe to McCarthy’s rationale as they have roped in Steve Komphela, giving him a glorified title of “senior coach”.
Komphela will report to the club’s co-coaches, Manqoba Mngqithi and Rhulani Mokwena, who were promoted to the top job when Pitso Mosimane unexpectedly dumped the Brazilians to join continental giants Al-Ahly. The set-up at the club, however, seems to have remained almost the same as when “Jingles” was the head coach while Mngqithi and Mokwena were his right-hand men.
The difference now is that there is no outright head coach, even though a bit of rationality suggests that Mngqithi has the edge as he is given prevalence should there be no consensus.
Former Bafana head coach, Shakes Mashaba, is not quite sure how this experiment is going to work out.
“I am still trying to think how this will work. My question is how are they going to make decisions and will they listen to each other? For me it sounds a bit confusing because the two coaches were doing well at the club and now you bring in another coach who has been doing well at his former club,” Mashaba told Phakaaathi.
“Rhulani once left Sundowns. Did we know what chased him out? What if it was a question of power? But let us give it a chance and see how it will work. Manqoba is an experienced coach even though he does not have a long track record like Steve. Rhulani is still coming up and he is maturing and if you look at the combinations, there is space for good progress,” he added.
Mashaba went on to advise the trio to stick as a unit and sing from the same hymn book and avoid attracting individual attention.
“What will help them is dropping the ‘I’ and start using ‘we’. But it is not easy to hear people talking about ‘we’. If it does happen that in front of people they say they are working well together, the danger of that is that they can go behind each other’s back, saying things like ‘I am the one who is making the team tick’.
“What they need to deal with is egos because in this situation everyone wants accolades in a team like Sundowns.”
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