‘MAGIYANE’, DOMINIC COMBO GOOD FOR SIHLANGU

My dearest readers ... It’s good to be back in the Pandora’s Box after a shorter-than-a-G-string leave (now get your mind out of the gutter ... hahahaha), playing with other kids in the Land of Kenneth Kaunda.

I had not even taken a sip of the thunderous Mosi beer at the inviting Lusaka Grand Hotel when ‘Mr Cool’, Weekend Sports Editor, Ashmond Nzima sent me a WhatsApp message to say, ‘Papic is gone’. Not that I was shocked. It had been long time coming.

The truth and reality is that, no matter how likeable the former Orlando Pirates mentor was, his failure to win ONE game in open play out of 13 games is the worst record EVER. No matter how much he tried to infuse an all-attack minded approach to our hapless national team, which admittedly was pleasing to the eye, the poor results were just too much to bear.

Losing to the lowly ranked Djibouti was the lowest point and the sight of him walking like a grizzly bear in urgent need of a root canal surgery at the end of the goalless draw at Mavuso Sports Centre on the fateful Tuesday afternoon of September 10 will stay with me until eternity.
Walking like a retrenched watchman, Papic seemed to carry all the dejection of emaSwati on his shoulders that catastrophic afternoon. If disappointment was a person, that was him.

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In fact, when I spent one Friday afternoon with him at his favourite Italian restaurant – my treat – at Woodlands, listening to him lay bare at his frustration in not getting Sihlangu to play to its full potential and the intricacies which have undermined Eswatini football, in his view, I left the place knowing his days as Sihlangu head coach were truly over.

Papic, like the many foreign coaches before him, was left frustrated by the laid-back approach; the security forces players’ lack of motivation to take their football forward and most importantly the shoe-string budget of the Eswatini Football Association (EFA).

Not only was he the lowest paid national team coach in the region but his team never got to play any international preparatory games as he would have liked.
Like all the cemetery of men, who have been hired and fired by the Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa-led executive committee, he had also failed trying to fit square pegs into round holes that is our national team.

The end was nigh.
Now, where do we go from here? Does the EFA even have an idea what needs to be done? What’s the vision of the EFA with the national team? Do they really even care anymore?

These questions and more keep some of us worried sick. Already two local coaches, Gcina ‘Magiyane’ Dlamini, who is leading the sexy football playing Buccaneers of Moneni and the most under-rated coach in the country, Young Buffaloes mentor Dominic Kunene have raised their hands for the vacant Sihlangu coaching job. Quite interesting!
At this present moment, hiring another foreign coach would not make sense. In fact with the petty salary we are offering our national team coaches, we will never find the right quality coach.

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They don’t say if you pay peanuts you get monkeys for nothing!
The average coaches in the region earn anything above E150 000. We are offering half of that amount. We are playing marbles. Granted in local circles, the E100 000 is way too much – and it’s higher than what our Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini takes home per month. But the salary issue aside, it is what is expected of the national team coach that is the real challenge. Our national team averagely plays less than 10 games per year.
In the end, the national team coach spends over six months doing absolutely zilch. Why? We simple don’t have a plan for him when we hire him. Therein lies the rub. Until the EFA has a well laid plan for a full-time Sihlangu head coach especially a foreign one, let them go the local route.

The national team coach, in a perfect set-up, should be someone who also oversees the junior squad so that there is continuity and consistency with all the squads playing a similar kind of football.

As it is, perhaps right now, a combination of Gcina ‘Magiyane’ Dlamini and Dominic Kunene, as co-coaches at Sihlangu would work. Both are with the National Under-17 and Under-20 squads, which needless to say are our future Sihlangu.

Kunene can be the head coach with ‘Magiyane’ his able assistant. Watching Kunene’s team perform so well in the COSAFA Under-20 Youth Championships, I had no doubt if we kept the team together with periodical quarterly camps even when there is no competition, we would be building a team for the future.

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We already have some of the boys playing at Premier League level. The EFA must capacitate the two coaches, ‘Magiyane’ and Kunene, with coaching courses so that they can learn the latest trends in coaching, empower them some more and in the end, it is our national team that can benefit.
Even if they cannot hire them on a full-time basis but theirs will be to oversee all the squads and luckily they are already involved with both Under-17 and Under-20 squads.

It is not too much to ask. After all they won’t be paying them the cellphone number salaries they have always paid the foreign journeyman but trust me, they can do a much better job.
Bye, bye Papic, thanks for nothing. Welcome ‘Magiyane’ and Dominic Kunene to the poisoned chalice that is the Sihlangu coaching job. Good luck ...

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