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

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