MIHLALI BALEKA
Miguel Gamondi knows all about the rebuilding phase. As such, he has advised the Kaizer Chiefs faithful to manage their expectations for the new season amid the club’s new dawn.
Chiefs have been widely expected to return the glory days next season and end a nine-year trophy drought after signing coach Nasreddine Nabi.
The new coach arrived at the club wearing a hat befitting of a ‘messiah’ as he won the league title at Young Africans and finished second at AS FAR in his last two jobs. But while most of Chiefs’ fans expected the Tunisian to hit the ground running and challenge for the title next term, his team still showed they are far off from being a well-oiled machine on Sunday.
Chiefs lost 4-0 to Young Africans in the Toyota Cup at Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein, after coming off a three-week pre-season camp in Türkiye. Yanga’s victory was steered by Gamondi, Nabi’s successor, who is in his second season at the club and eager to defend their league championship and FA Cup title, while doing better than their quarter-final finish in the CAF Champions League.
The Argentine, who also won the league title at Sundowns alongside co-coach Neil Tovey in 2005, knows all about the situation that Amakhosi find themselves in.
“You cannot be a big team overnight,” Gamondi said.
“In my opinion, the expectations are too high because in football you need players. Even Pep (Guardiola) says the success that he got at Manchester City and Barcelona was because of the players.
“In my case, I prefer to start slow and build, and not think big after because things will become a reality. I think we gave them (Chiefs) a lesson of how to play at international level.
“It’s not easy, but you need to have experience. Kaizer Chiefs today had four to five youngsters, but you cannot use them to win at a high level.”
Nabi’s decision to field youngsters Samkelo Zwane, Nkosana Mbuthu, Mfundo Vilakazi and Mduduzi Shabala against Yanga showed nerves of steel.
In hindsight, it also exposed the club’s shortage of quality players who will be able to complete against the best players in the Betway Premiership and other domestic cup competitions next season.
“I am not criticising the level of Kaizer Chiefs, but at a big club it’s difficult to manage players as well as the expectations,” Gamondi said.
“You created big expectations and therefore you must perform on the pitch. It’s no excuse. I spoke to the coach (Nabi), there’s a lot of work to be done.
“But if he wants to compete in the domestic league against teams such as (Mamelodi) Sundowns, (Orlando) Pirates and Cape Town (City), you need to recruit (quality) players. It’s not easy.”
Chiefs have only announced the signing of left-back Rushwin Dortley and goalkeeper Fiacre Ntwari so far this winter, while they’ve promised to make further additions at a later stage. But until Chiefs sign more quality players, Gamondi has reserved some special advice for the club’s faithful who thought their return to glory days was nearer.
“I think the fans have to manage the expectations. We (as coaches) must be clever on how we pass the message and be realistic with the players that we have,” he said.
“I think this is going to be a transition season for Kaizer Chiefs. This is logical, and realistic. You cannot fail to win the title in 10 years, and without star players to become champions, it’s not logical.
“The wish of the fans I understand, but the management and the coaches have to think of football strictly differently.”
Sure, Chiefs’ defensive blunders let them down against Yanga, but Gamondi has identified a certain position where he’d like to see Chiefs improve.
“Coaches can work … but if you don’t have quality then it’ll be difficult. What I saw – yes, it’s a pre-season game and so it doesn’t matter – but Chiefs need to create scoring chances,” he said.
“When they didn’t create scoring chances that became a concern. We created chances all round, and we had ball possession a lot.”