Reflecting on the recent appointment of Hugo Broos as Bafana Bafana manager, Manqoba Mngqithi says it would have made more sense for SAFA to appoint a local candidate.
The appointment of the Belgian has caused wide-spread controversy, especially after Benni McCarthy was snubbed in the process.
The Mamelodi Sundowns boss did not back down from sharing his opinion.
“It’s something I would not like to get my hands on, but the truth of the matter is that the development of our coaches and our football is also very important. Even if you bring foreign expertise, it is always a very wise move to have some local coaches within that space, so that we benefit something from the legacy of that coach you bring in given that we believe he is bringing something that South Africans do not have,” Mnqgithi said to journalists.
“If somebody brings some scarce skills that South Africans do not have, we will have to support him, see what he offers and learn from him. But I would always be somebody who supports the thinking that South Africans are capable of doing it themselves, for several reasons. One, whoever you bring in, if you were to ask them who are the key players at Sundowns, Pirates, Chiefs or SuperSport, he might not even know one and it will take him time to adjust and understand all the players we have locally and internationally as well as their profile. That’s why it should be important for such people to be always surrounded by the people who know the players better, and those should be South African coaches. And then secondly, the culture of having a foreigner with some locals as full-time assistant coaches I think would also help. It benefited coach Pitso (Mosimane) a lot (to learn) from Carlos Alberto Parreira, and I believe it can help any other South African coach given the privilege to work closely with the coach that has been appointed.
The Downs head coach claimed his local counterparts were hardly given the same time as foreign managers have been given in the past. It comes after he recently said that Ntseki was not given enough support during his time as Bafana Bafana manager.
“But I just believe, sometimes, we don’t know what South African coaches are capable of, I think we take them for granted. We only realize late what they have and when we give them opportunities, we probably don’t support them as much as we support the foreigners hence, we are not always going to see them succeeding and yet maybe it’s because we are not giving them the same sufficient support that we would normally give a European,” he explained.