"Yellow Nation" see red!

I decided to take a foreign colleague of mine to the stadium this afternoon to watch a game between Moroka Swallows and Mamelodi Sundowns so that he can experience “real: South African soccer, live. What a bad day to do that…

For some strange reason, tickets for the game were not made available at Computicket.  Thus, we first had to endure a struggle and look for the place or individual who was selling tickets for the game. This delayed us slightly and we missed out on seeing the game’s opening goal.   In all honesty, the game was not the most entertaining game I have ever seen.

As the game wore on I kept poking to my Ugandan friend, Steven, to show him how the tension in the Yellow Nation’s (Sundowns supporters’) stand was increasing as the game wore in. The worst was yet to come.

The game ended 2-0 in favour of the home team.  The coaches’ interviews were being done, while in the background, the traveling band of Mamelodi Sundowns supporters was busy devising a way of breaking down the fence on the east side of the stadium.   

As I was seated in the main grand stand with fellow Moroka Swallows supporters, things didn’t look like they would get out of control.

 Although I am not quite the best photographer in town, I managed to take a few snaps which tell the story better than I can.  There was chaos. Steven was stunned.

Notice how some fans have pieces of what used to be a fence in the hands

Downs fans even tipped over the coaches' dugout

Steven could not believe his eyes

I think the violence lasted for about thirty minutes after the final whistle. Supporters - kids and adults alike - were running wild all over the Dobsonville stadium pitch, while the main group was causing trouble with the police and security officials. They were outnumbered by the unruly supporters and I wondered how badly this would end – we have all seen civilians shot for causing far less trouble without directly attacking the police.

Alex Tshakaone managed to escape unscathed into the tunnel after he decided t make a run for it when it began to seem clear that this time the Yellow Nation was here to make a statement and would not back down no matter which club official Sundowns sent to try calm them down.  The fans have clearly had enough of coach Johan Neeskens.  Few coaches manage to keep their job at the helm one of the Big Three with a record like that.

As I write this, I am pretty sure Neeskens will be relieved of his duties tomorrow morning. The fans have been heard chanting Pitso Mosimane’s name (yes, the very same Pitso that almost every soccer fan in South Africa described as a “clueless coach” after his rather unsuccessful time as national team coach).

This could be Pitso’s chance to return to the big time. However, do not be surprised if Sundowns owner Patrice Motsepe whips out his cheque book and buys out the contract of another Dutch coach – but only this time, a Dutch coach who has actually enjoyed success in the Premier Soccer League.

If it isn’t obvious by now, I am referring to none other than Ruud Krol.

Watch this space.

Thomas Monyepao

Do follow me on twitter

All hail Majazana!

The MTN8 cup is officially over and congratulations are in order for Zeca Marques, the players and everyone who forms part of Moroka Swallows on their recent MTN8 Cup success.

It has been 3 years since the Dube Birds last won silverware, and judging by the amount of support in the stadium behind The Birds, even neutrals around the country will be pretty satisfied with the 2-1 result.

The game was a tight affair, as most finals are, although I believe Supersport United displayed the better football.  In the end the direct football displayed by the Birds won the battle, and the cup will be staying in Soweto for another year.

However, I do feel that Zeca Marques is not being given due credit for leading the side to the victory.

Zeca Marques’ predecessor, Gordon Igesund, did a great job in rebuilding the Moroka Swallows side with some good buys in the transfer market and through re-energizing the likes of Lerato Chabangu which eventually led to Swallows finishing as runners-up in the PSL 2011/12 season.

 Gordon was then offered the biggest job in the country and is now the head coach of the national soccer team, Bafana Bafana.

Zeca Marques then made the step-up to head coach of Swallows this season and had huge shoes to fill.  Fast forward to the first game of the season and Zeca loses 2-1 away to Platinum Stars. The fans are already calling for the coaches head (yes, even at such an early stage of the season - welcome to the PSL).   

Some used his previous stint as coach as proof that he isn’t capable to lead The Birds, others pointed to his “boring” style of play that he was implementing. Some people thought I was an idiot trying to defend him on social networks (I am having a similar experience in defending Sundowns coach, Johan Neeskens). 

Now, following the MTN8 cup success, the fans are now singing a different tune and although Zeca Marques seems to be getting some credit for leading them to glory, it seems that now people are pointing to Gordon Igesund as the man responsible for this victory.

 Igesund was indeed responsible for rebuilding Swallows and laying the foundation for Zeca Marques current team. Credit must be given to Igesund for that. However, Zeca Marques is the man that has had to work day-in and day-out with the current team, keeping motivation and hunger high, and maintaining discipline whilst ensuring that the team plays according to his specific instruction. And he has proved to also be a bit of a wheeler-dealer in the transfer market, having  managed to acquire the services of free agent, Katlego Mashego. Mashego repaid the faith shown in him by providing a beautiful assist for the winning goal in the final. 

Had Marques not been successful, fans would be pointing the finger solely at him and him alone. But now that team has won a trophy, many prefer to give respect to the previous coach. It is something I have never understood. In the previous season, Julio Leal came in as the new Orlando Pirates coach, taking over from treble winning Ruud Krol. Leal won the first 2 trophies that his team took part in during the 2011/12 season (MTN8 and Telkom Cups, respectively) yet was “suspended” (before eventually “parting ways” with the club) and ridiculed by some of the Pirates faithful as “under-performing” and judged to have only been successful due to the  previous work done by Krol. Again, I say, Krol does deserve some credit. But, had Leal not a won a trophy and lost 4 games in a row DK-and-DK style, he would have been referred to as a ‘clueless’ coach.  

  

This is slightly similar to a situation where a coach has a very, very good squad, wins the domestic league title and continental championship while making stars out o f the few relatively unknown players is the judged to have succeeded because “anyone can win with that squad” (if it’s not obvious by now, I’m speaking about Pep Guardiola).

If fans, in general, are willing to blame a coach for a team’s failure, why is it that when the situation is different and a coach is in charge of a winning team, everybody else is seen to have contributed more to the success than the man in the hot seat.

Coaching is indeed a thankless job. Being a coach myself, albeit Sunday-league level, I’m bound to defend coaches.  Because it seems like no matter what level it is, there is one golden rule in football: If in doubt, just blame the coach

Hopefully, the majority of Swallows fans will be realistic enough to know that the League title is out of their reach and will not put too much pressure on the player or the coaching staff.

I believe that a 5^th or 6^th place finish this season would represent a decent performance considering the piles of money required to compete in the modern football on a consistent basis.

Thomas Monyepao

Do follow me on twitter

Match analysis: Kaizer Chiefs vs Bloemfontein Celtic 21 March 2012

This was my first ever blog, on a different platform about 6 months ago.  Very long but comprehensive breakdown of the game between Kaizer Chiefs and Bloemfontein Celtic.  Looking back from where I started, my writing has improved since then.

After listening to bits and pieces of Vladimir Verzmezovic’s post-match interview where he stated that his players were not “killers”, I decided to watch the rebroadcast of the match between Kaizer Chiefs and Bloemfontein Celtic which was played on the 21^st of March 2012 and start blogging.

With such a lack independent bloggers out there, I decided that I would lead and begin the trend in SA -in England you can find a blogger on almost every street corner. 
 

In my opinion, I do not feel the level of SA punditry is not very high, I actually feel it is quite bad and of poor quality. I remember a certain pundit on show discussing on Thomas Mlambo’s show on the Supersport speaking on why the referee in the recent Soweto Derby decided not to allow play to go on for the full 6 minutes injury time he had indicated. This particular “expert” justified this by asking the following question, “Did he(the ref) not indicate this during the 89^th minute?”

That was what twitter world call a “SMH” moment. The other pundit in the studio justified the ref’s decision by claiming Chiefs had 90 minutes to find a goal so "nobody should be looking at the ref". The logic and reasoning left me speechless.

Through this blog, let’s read, learn, disagree, debate and discuss. These discussions are what make football such a popular sport globally and as the Supersport tag line goes: “The more you know, the better it gets”.
 

Now that I have got the formalities out of the way, let’s dive into the soccer stuff.

This week I decided to analyse the the PSL match between Kaizer Chiefs and Bloemfontein from the Peter Mokaba stadium.

General overview:
Chiefs adopted a short-passing, compact attacking strategy. Their aim was to patiently build up play, with a lot of players getting a touch of the ball on the way to a shot or interception from the opponents. They kept the ball on the ground and penetrated mainly through the left and centre of the field.
Celtic began the match with a counter-attacking strategy which failed miserably in the first half and basically made the job ten times easier for Chiefs. Clinton Larson realized his mistake at half time and the team started attacking in numbers following the half-time break thereby making it much easier to keep possession as their striker Madubanya was not as isolated as he was in the first half. In the first half, Madubanya had to receive long balls with his back against goal and with little support. Celtic’s strategy of using fast wingers was a good strategy especially as VV decided to use rusty wingbacks, Tau and Jambo, in this game, the former not contributing at all in an attacking sense and also not putting in a great performance defensively. 

 Celtic also tried to score a goal through corners and freekicks using the towering Mathoho as the player to provided knockdowns and flicks in the air. The strategy almost worked but Khune made an important reflex save in the first half from a shot which could have changed the game.

Both teams enjoyed a pass completion rate of over 80% but Chiefs were more efficient and used the ball wisely. Many of you may say that Chiefs wasted a lot of scoring chances – this is no excuse – but that only occurred when they were 2-0 up and the game was now in their control.

Both teams used – what looked to me – a 4-2-3-1 formation. For Chiefs this involved Tshabalala having the role of central attacking midfield, a role, I feel, he is not well suited to and a role where his excellent crossing ability is wasted. “Shabba” had Lebese and Masango on the either side of him wth Majoro riding solo in the centre forward position. Baloyi and the impressive Katsande patrolled the centre of the field and broke up Celtic’s build-up play. The sequence of events leading up to Baloyi’s goal involved him making an interception in the centre of the park and finishing of his own solo run. That was excellent play from the man but his shooting for the rest of the night was awful. He definitely is not a “killer”. He may not be a striker and some may say his role is in the deep midfield area but one would expect better shooting accuracy from a professional football player at a big club. As previously mentioned, Jimmy Tau did not provide an attacking threat at all which is a big contributing factor that lead to 68% of Chefs’ crosses from the flank in the game coming from the left side of the pitch. Jambo linked up well with Lebese, Majoro, Baloyi and to a lesser extent Tshabalala on the left flank, this troubled Celtic greatly. It must be noted, however, that 61% of Celtic’s crosses came from Jambo’s flank, this may be due to his attacking forays but I feel this was simply due to right footed players playing on the right hand side.

Many people underestimate the value of a having a right footed winger/wingback. Phenyo Mongala was having his way with Tau on the left but not really providing the crosses into the box. Mogala rather preferred dribbling or passing inside. This, as I stated, is largely because of him being a right-footed player playing on the left and preferring to cut inside.

1st half:

The short-passing carpet football tactic employed by Chiefs worked marvelously when in possession, especially in the first half. After 20 minutes, the possession stats read: 62% ball possession for the Glamour Boys, and a measly 38% worth of possession for the team from the Free State province. Interceptions from Celtic came in their defensive third 59% of the time. What does that tell us? Penetration. Chiefs use that possession intelligently and penetrate straight through the Celtic midfield and pressurize the Celtic defence in their own half. In the first half, Chiefs penetrated the Celtic defence on numerous occasions and as a result they lost possession (via interceptions) 60% of the time in the attacking third. This shows that the managed to pass the ball patiently and keep possession, mainly in the centre, and lost the ball usually when attempting the killer pass, a dribble, or a careless mistake in the attacking third. But, this is exactly where you want your team losing possession as a coach, in the opponent’s defensive third, thus putting the opponents under pressure and usually resulting in panic clearances or hopeful long balls leading to possession being gifted straight back to your team far away from your own goal. Although Celtic lost the ball the same amount in the attacking third as they did in the middle third of the pitch (48%) they usually lost the ball easily because they were playing long balls to their big striker Madubanya who lacked support and was crowded out by Chiefs’ defensive players. This is where I feel Clinton Larson went wrong. By not allowing numbers forward, the Celtic players played a brand of football that they (and most other South African teams) are not comfortable with, they then failed to penetrate the Chiefs defence or keep possession for a good amount of time to relieve the pressure off their defence.

With Chiefs dominating play, it has to be said that they failed to really make it count and only managed to take the lead through Baloyi’s long range shot which came about largely due to bad defence and poor keeping from Celtic. Players taking too many touches on the ball before attempting to take a shot contributes to possession not amounting to many goals in the South African game.

Let’s s how the goal came about:

• · Baloyi in his defensive midfield position intercepted the ball in the middle of the park (an area where up until that point Chiefs had intercepted the ball 55% of the time)

• · The 1^st player tracking Baloyi on his run slows down and basically lets Baloyi open up a gap. The 2^nd player allows Baloyi to glide past without any use of sidesteps or silky tricks.

• · At this point there are 2 Celtic defenders that are not marking a player (including captain Nthethe who really should be now closing down Baloyi) and still none of them decided to charge down Baloyi and close down the space he had available.

• · With all this space available, Baloyi decided to take a shot which went past the keeper who was in no man’s land.

It was a decent shot that would not have cause too much trouble to most keepers under normal circumstances. Had the Celtic keeper, Thabani Stemmer, not been so badly positioned (he was a few yards off his line) the score could have possibly remained a level for much longer in the game and frustrate Chiefs with all their possession. The goal was more of a chip than a “rocket” past the keeper. Poor, poor keeping, but credit to Baloyi for taking responsibility and being brave. I hope he bought the Celtic defence a few beers after the game because that goal was a gift.

Speaking about gifts, Jambo almost gave Celtic a gift at the other end. He failed to simply head the ball clear and instead headed it right into the path of a Celtic player. Luckily for Chiefs, the shot went straight to Khune’s feet. Chiefs’ left backs are not doing the team any favours with their errors. Keegan Ritchie cost Chiefs dearly in the Soweto derby played in the previous week by trying to dribble in the 18-yard area instead of clearing the ball. This gifted the lethal Benni McCarthy with a chance to fire Pirates into the lead. On that topic, is VV now going to not play Jambo in the next game due to one - admittedly silly - mistake? Is this really a good approach to coaching from VV, putting on more pressure on players at this - an already pressurized - stage of the season? What would you do if you were the coach?

The first half was Phenyo Mongala’s time to shine for Celtic. 64% of Celtic’s crosses came from his flank. It is a pity he faded in the second half as Celtic began to spread the play. One must also note that the Madubanya was not making the proper diagonal runs to create space for himself and create a better angel for the two Celtic wingers to cross to (I speak about Majoro’s runs a little later in the blog). This pretty much works against Larson’s strategy of using counter-attacking and width to penetrate the Chiefs defence.

A key moment in the first half for Celtic was when the Chiefs defender, Zvasiya, easily let Mabubanya past him as he let the ball bounce over himself. The striker who was then gifted with a 1 versus 1 opportunity to score then failed to provide a shot on target. This was a potential turning point on the match. If you fail to shoot straight (on target), you will fail to score. This is a principle that all youth coaches should teach their young strikers. If you don’t believe that, watch “Chicharito” and Darren Bent who both play in the Barclays English Premier league respectively. They do the basics excellently, and a good product follows.

2^nd half:

Following his initial tactical blunder in his approach t the game in the first half, Larson clearly had told the players to push up and support in attack a lot more and play the ball around on the ground. Although Celtic were starting lose the ball higher up in the field and the stats may make them look like they were dominating the early part of the 2^nd half, that wasn’t necessarily true. Chiefs allowed Celtic to play around with the ball but managed to prevent them from penetrating all the way through to goal and when Chiefs had the ball they were efficient and the end result of their moves was either a goal-scoring opportunity, corner, throw or an attempted killer pass which was grabbed by the keeper. Celtic, however, were starting to get back into the game, by the 60 minute mark, possession for Celtic was now 47% (up from the pathetic 34% in the 40^th minute). Clinton Larson must really be kicking himself for his initial tactical blunders. It was too little to late because by the 60^th minute, Chiefs were 2 goals up.

Let’s analyze Chiefs’ beautiful 2^nd goal:

Let me state that this goal is great for teaching youngsters movement off the ball

• · Jambo intercepted the ball in the left hand side in the middle of the park.He then proceeded to switch play to George Lebese who was on the right hand side of the field, unusually,

• · Masango made a run into space as Lebese received the ball,

• · Lebese proceeded to play it to Masanago,

• · Masango took a touch to control and crossed with his 2^nd touch (uick and decisive), and

• · Majoro took 2 or 3 yards away from the defender just before Masango crossed the ball which then lead to him having an easy tap in for the goal.

The first lesson for youngsters is: when a player from the attacking team has possession of the ball on either flank and near to the goal line, the players from the defending team will now find it much harder to focus on both the ball and the player that he/she was marking. That is one reason why a strategy aimed at penetrating through wide areas works excellently for certain teams. Defenders are running towards their own goal, head facing ball, while the attacking player is not in his vision. Some teams however cross from deep which usually allows the defender to see both the striker and the ball.

A deeper analysis of the ball (for all the coaches reading this):

• · At the moment when Lebese received the ball, the situation was essentially a 4v5 situation (4 attackers versus 5 defenders). One Celtic player, Mahoa, was marking Tshabalala, one Celtic player was running towards Lebese, one Celtic player was lazily tracking Masango, and one defender was taking care of Lehlogonolo “Balz” Majoro while Celtic captain Thabo Nthethe was in open space.

• · The pass to Masango from Lebese then forced Mahoa to leave him Tshabalala and try close Masango down(which he failed) as the player that was lazily tracking Masango was now nowhere close enough to challenge Masango. This meant that Masango could either continue penetrating through the Celtic defence or pass it out wide to a FREE “Shabba” (remember this was a 4v5 situation yet at that point Chiefs had a free player with nobody marking him).

• · Captain Nthethe was still in no man’s land thus Masango continued his run through the Celtic defence.

• · A this point, there were two Chiefs players in the box (including Masango) and FOUR Celtic defenders (2v4 situation) yet the move still ended up in a goal for Chiefs. One defender is marking Majoro and the other 3 were pretty much in no man’s land and not close enough to close Masango down (Nthethe must really have issues with charging at and closing Chiefs players down).

• · “Balz” Majoro’s clever run went from running towards the ball then suddenly changing direction and running outwards and further from the ball just before Masango crossed the ball, thereby creating space and boom beautiful goal from Chiefs.

• · Bad defending from Celtic, great movement off the ball from Lehlogonolo “I do hav balz” Majoro aka “Balz”.

After the 2nd goal, both teams made 2 substitutions and the game went through a disjointed phase where possession was changing hands after every few seconds. It was not pretty to watch for five minutes or so from either team. This phase culminated in one of the substitutes, Dladla, giving away a sloppy pass in the defensive third which gave Celtic’s Ghanaian player, Osei, a good opportunity to score but Khune made a good save. I think Osei might grow into a good PSL player. In Mike Mangena’s words, “I am putting my head on the block”.

Because Celtic was pushing more men forward, Celtic leave a big hole in the middle between attack and defence for Chiefs to exploit and, thus, the rest of the half ends up having Chiefs players (Parker, Dlaldla, and Baloyi to name a few) missing easy one-on-one opportunities that left coach VV feeling extremely frustrated at the lack of killer instinct. Chiefs do not have a “killer”... they have a Parker (cheesy, I know). Baloyi must really thank his lucky stars fro that goal because that was his only shot on target the whole game with the rest of his game being pretty pathetic in the shooting department. However, it must be noted that both teams struggled with playing direct football. This is mainly because the players fail to choose the right time to execute a pass or they choose the wrong player to pass to.
Possession in the 2^nd half alone was 55% for Celtic and 45% for the Naturena Boys. Celtic improved their play but in their quest to get a goal they were left open to numerous counter-attacks from Chiefs.   Judging by the fact that Chiefs created so many opportunities (14 shots compared to 6 shots for Celtic) in the half, Chiefs were very efficient with their possession, which stood at 45% for the half,.

Celtic played a bit like Bafana Bafana – plenty of possession but no penetration.

One must congratulate referee, Daniel Bennett for booking Tshabalala for simulation in the first half. Diving is something I hate seeing in the game and I take my hat off to every referee who books the players who do this sort of thing as these refs discourage such negative actions from players by sending a clear message of zero tolerance. I will resist slating referee Bennett for his inexcusable decision not to send of Celtic keeper for his handling the ball outside the box. Stemmer prevented a clear gal-scoring opportunity. I shall say no more.

One must also mention Kaizer Chiefs’ coach, Vladimir Verzmezovic, and his coaching stuff for developing Itumeleng Khune’s distribution to the point whereby he is also a very useful attacking tool. Within 60 minutes, Khune had already played at least FOUR direct long balls from his hands straight to the edge of the opposition’s 18-yard area (mostly to Majoro).

One question though, with all due respect , what is player of Zothwane’s ability doing warming the bench at a team like Celtic? Is it off-the-field indiscipline or other issues?

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog, and gained a bit of insight as a player, coach, or fan of the game. 

I would also like to say congratulations to Darren Keet on becoming the youngest SA born keeper to play in a cup final in Europe. You are making Bidvest Wits and the country proud.

Thomas Monyepao

Starting lineups

Chiefs: Khune (c), Jambo,Tau, Zvasiya, Isaacs, Baloyi, Katsande, Lebeses, Masango, Tshabalala, “Balz” Majoro

Celtic: Stemmer, Moleko, Mathoho, Nthete (C), Mahoa, Mshengu, Mkhwanazi, Kerspuy, Mongala, Mofokeng, Madubanya.

The real popcorns were sitting in the stands

As many of you will know, the past week was an international week with no club action. I must admit I prefer to watch club football much more than the friendly extravaganza that takes place once in a while.

Gordon Igesund enjoyed a decent start to his tenure as Bafana Bafana coach despite suffering a 1-0 loss against five-time world champions, Brazil.  The side had plenty of new faces and faces we only got to see for five minutes (I’m looking at you Benni).  The game wasn’t beautiful to watch and the Brazilian fans made it known to everybody watching. Some of the spectators even decided to boo the best player in the world, Neymar (according to Pele) and chants of “Neymar you are a popcorn” rang around the stadium as he was coming off  near the end of the game.

 

In an interview after the match, Neymar had this to say:  "I do not know the exact reason behind the fans' behaviour, but it might have something to do with the presence of Palmeiras, Corinthians and Sao Paulo supporters in the crowd. But I repeat, they should be supporting the team rather than booing players from rival teams."

Neymar endured a tough outing and it did not help that he was playing in a city that's home to his club team, Santos’ three main rivals. But whether his claims are true (that some rival teams supporters were giving him a hard time) or whether Neymar is simply failing to take tough criticism on the chin and accept that he put in a poor performance, Neymar’s words made me think of the situation in South Africa.

In the days leading up to Bafana-Brazil game, there were plenty of discussion and debates on Twitter, the social networking platform, as to why there seems to be so many Chiefs players and not Orlando Pirates stars like Andile Jali or former darling other Happy people, Teko Modise.  Looking at the situation I asked myself (and tweeted, of course) why we – as South Africans – are debating and worrying over such trivial matters like how many players of a certain team happen to be in the Gordon Igesund first squad, instead of giving - not only the coach, but the national team as a whole - our full support.  

I wondered whether this phenomenon also took place in other countries like England, Italy or Spain, the current Euro and World Cup champions.  For example, were English people from the city of Manchester mad at the fact that Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott was chosen for the Euro 2012 squad instead of Manchester United Rio Ferdinand? Did these “supporters” bring any logical reasoning to the table when discussing the pros and cons of bringing in Lescott ahead of Rio or did discussions disintegrate into a name-calling contest with comments such as “Roy Hodgson is Man City supporter, look at all those City players” or comments like “This team is a ManCOWster City replica”?  And yes, I realise that The English squad contained a large number of Manchester United players, but surely even that would not be too much of an obstacle to stop small-minded supporters from criticizing anything and everything that they don’t agree with, with the intensity  of criticism being based on which team the player in question plays for.

One does hope that as supporters of our national soccer team, we begin act as a united front, and cheer  without fear or favour (as SoccerZone’s Sylvester Ndaba would say) and that in South Africa we do not ever experience scenes where a certain play is booed mainly because of the club team he belongs to.

International football is difficult enough without having to deal with negative vibes from your own supporters. 

Support your team fully and stop acting like a popcorn!

Thomas Monyepao

Do follow me on twitter (Tom_18Yards)