This was supposed to be a season of Kaizer Chiefs returning to its grand glory days. A generally held consensus is that the club lost its lustre eight years ago. Nothing could be furthest from the truth.
The decline of Chiefs as a force to be reckoned with, a stylish outfit that played with panache and chutzpah, has been two decades in the making. The historical context is that during the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s the Chiefs’ trophy cabinet runneth over.
Amakhosi amassed an impressive array of silverware. Walk into their trophy room, and your eye will be caught by a glittering collection of the spoils of conquests such as the SAB, Mainstay, JPS, Ohlson’s, Rothmans, Nedbank and MTN8 cups. The club was not called cup kings for nothing.
In 20 years — not eight — their culture and identity have gradually eroded. The downward spiral can be traced to when the late Ted Dumitru exited from his second stint at the club in the early 2000s, having arrived to replace Muhsin Ertugral.
During his three-year tenure, the German Turk had collected all cup competitions on offer, leading to then public relations officer Putco Mafani coining the phrase “Operation Vat Alles” (win everything). Missing from that collection was the league title.
Sensing that the club’s grip was slipping, Chiefs chairman Kaizer Motaung brought back Romanian Dumitru to restore the club to its perch. Shoes Moshoeu and Scara Ngobese (bless their souls) made the magic. Jabulani Mendu sprayed pin-point passes. In the rearguard Fabian McCarthy and Derrick Spencer did an Ashford & Simpson number, Solid As A Rock.
That team fed the fans with memorable back-to-back table topping, champagne popping campaigns in 2003-04 and 2004-05. They were inventive, controlled the game and made opponents dance to their tune.
The stats don’t lie.
A remark on Dumitru’s profile posted on the Chiefs website in 2003 reads: “The coach — affectionately called ‘Mr Magic’ or ‘Professor’ — excelled in mixing winning performance with a high degree of African attractiveness. They called it ‘carpet football’. The man’s record is as rewarding as his passion for soccer progress.
“In less than six seasons of assignments, mainly with the top clubs in South Africa, Kaizer Chiefs and Sundowns, the list of trophies includes 12 major cups, two consecutive League Championships as well as reaching the 2001 African Champions League final.”
When Dumitru departed with his magic and repeated the double league trick at Sundowns, his departure initiated a period of championship poverty at Chiefs that coincided with a world captivated by the German football revolution. Motaung’s head was swayed in that direction and Ernst Middendorp was hired.
Two seasons later, Chiefs finished ninth, outside the top eight bracket, for the first time in their history.
The question of quality over quantity cannot be overlooked. The rearguard was fortified with formidable additions. Tsepo Masilela. Tefu Mashamaite. Molomowandau Mathoho. Siboniso Gaxa. Morgan Gould. They had an in-form Itumeleng Khune as the last line of defence.
Their presence brought a promise of recovery. The Chiefs sextet resembled an impenetrable fortress. They were the bedrock on which Stuart Baxter’s two league titles and two trophies were built between 2013 and 2015, and were ever-present in the Bafana Bafana squad.
From then on, things went pear-shaped. Steve Komphela’s three-year tenure bore no fruit — marking the beginning of an eight-season silverware-barren spell. By extension, this period has seen the dominance of the club dwindle.
The downslide has been two decades in the making.
Unmissable was the steady degrade in the playing personnel. The joke was that Chiefs would buy one Zimbabwean and get another free. Mitchell Katsvairo, Edmore Chirambadare, Thomas Sweswe, Cephas Chimedza, Godfrey Walusimbi, Sula Matovu, Ivan Bukenya and Akumu Agey were some of the misses.
Currently the team is non-existent stylistically. The goalkeeping appears to rely on guesswork. The defence is more porous than South Africa’s borders, with 33 goals against in the just concluded campaign.
The midfield is a minefield littered with failures of imagination.
The strike force has the accuracy of blind men. Moving from the net-busting days of Collins Mbesuma and Knowledge Musona to Caleb Bimenyimana and Christian Saile is a depreciation of rand proportions. In 21 matches Bimenyimana scored eight goals, five of which were penalties, and had one assist. Saile scored three with one assist in 16 games.
Ashely du Preez played 32 matches in all competitions. He is the team's top scorer on nine strikes, standing at six goals and five assists in 25 league games — two in four Nedbank Cup games and three in MTN8 encounters.
Word from the club was that they had entered a rebuilding phase. It was a season to return to the Chiefs’ way of enterprising play with Arthur Zwane, a man who understands the culture of the club, in charge.
The season started with the conviction of challenging for the league title. By May, that phantasm of hope was so quickly nullified; even Stevie Wonder could tell it was an illusion. The goalposts were shifted further out.
Second position became the new goal, to qualify for a Caf Champions League spot. The evidence so far is that the foundation of the structure is laid on quicksand. It is not holding.
That ambition also went with the wind as the team strayed from the Chiefs way. Initially Bimenyimana was cast off after the Burundi international failed to impress during trials.
Then he was brought back. It had shades of Liverpool buying Mario Balotelli as a panic buy. His seven goals include four penalties in 17 matches, nothing to spark a swing from the chandeliers. To create something new. The results are not coming through.
The 1-0 defeat to SuperSport United and a loss with a similar score to Cape Town City in the final clash of the campaign confirmed their dilapidated state. Chiefs finished fifth with 47 points.
“When things are not going your way, people will always doubt the quality, but I will say it again: when you look at the number of chances we created this season, we are probably the second-best after Mamelodi Sundowns,” said Zwane.
“The only difference is that Sundowns took 80% of their chances and we scored only 30%. And when it comes to defending, we have been very sloppy. When you look at all the goals we have conceded, it’s not that teams punished us. They punished us because we gave them the ball to punish us. It’s not that they outplayed or outclassed us.
“Yes, we have had poor performances in terms of games where we were maybe blowing hot and cold on the field, but still we created a few chances.”
What counts in this game is being consistent in converting chances into goals. That’s what separates Sundowns from the rest. Competing in the Champions League exposed Sundowns to modernity. They added expertise to their technical team. The tentacles of the Brazilians’ scouting spread as wide and far as North Africa and South America.
Gems like Gaston Sirino and Marcelo Allende were uncovered in Uruguay and Chile while from Morocco came Abdelmounaim Boutouil, a figure of calmness in defence. A squad of competent scouts, video analysts, highly qualified physical trainers and the rest of the backroom staff are components of a modern-day technical battalion.
Think back to when Manchester City did a guard of honour for Erling Haaland when he broke the record of goals scored in one season. The support staff was there for all to see. The days of a coach and an assistant belong to the Stone Age.
Legendary striker Shane McGregor spoke about Zwane being assisted by an experienced coach. Insiders speak of intense conversations within the club of a potential coaching change.
The revolving door has been on high octane, with rapid comings and goings in the last six years. Giovanni Solinas, Baxter, Komphela, Ernst Middendorp, Gavin Hunt, Baxter again and now Zwane.
Time will tell whether the winds of change will blow Naturena’s way. Still no silverware in sight. The league title drought has been hidden by the fact that some cup competitions were collected along the way. But even those have dried up.
A portrait of pain is what images of incumbent Zwane portrayed whenever the cameras zoomed in on him in the dugout after another disappointing result.
Those pictures told a story of a club struggling to preserve what remains of its soul and regain its sense of self. Zwane’s rebuilding has been peppered with potholes of a punctured ambition and a vision punctuated by blind spots.
The ambition, it appears, is to remain the leader in marketing. Toyota has renewed its association. The new season will start with Kappa as the new technical sponsor. It is great for the tills to ring.
However, the logic of football is to dominate in the domestic league, a feat which has proved a bridge too far. The army of Amakhosi fans showed angst by marching to the club HQ to protest the team’s poor performances in 2021.
This club has built a massive following since its founding 54 years ago. The attendance was negligible. The march metamorphosed into a photoshoot with a photogenic marketing manager, Jessica Motaung. Fans were further appeased by an invite to FNB stadium to spend quality time with the Chiefs family: players, technical staff, et al.
The challenge with Chiefs is that the club has regressed in the core business, their reason for existence, football. The element of truth in that statement is telling.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.