With eight weeks to go before one of the most intriguing local football seasons ends, it seems substance leads the race over style.
It all started when Silver Stars won the inaugural Telkom Cup in December. Stars coach Owen da Gama’s outcomes-based methods also saw him lead the league title race up to the halfway stage.
Golden Arrows allowed coach Khabo Zondo ”to go on leave” and with him went the patient, even nonchalant, style based on sharing the ball among teammates for as long as possible until an opening is identified in the opponent’s guard.
Under Zondo, the Durban side hovered dangerously near the relegation zone. Under their new, oops, temporary coach Manqoba Mnqithi, the niceties have been suspended and the results are back. Last weekend’s win over Kaizer Chiefs — away — returned Abafana Bes’thende to the top eight contenders that they have always been.
SuperSport United, who squandered the opportunity of topping the standings going into this weekend’s fixtures by going down 2-1 to Santos on Wednesday, still have their sights on winners’ medals — even if it means abandoning the brand of football that made the top dogs at the South African Football Association entrust Pitso Mosimane (along with Zondo) with the fortunes of the national side until Carlos Alberto Parreira officially took over.
But nowhere is the death of style and the resurrection of substance as a preferred method more evident than at Orlando Pirates.
Two seasons of scintillating football brought a smile to detractors and neutrals, as it did to supporters, but no trophies. Coach Kostadin Papic called himself an under-achiever and left. In came compatriot Milutin Sredejovic. A poor run made up of more losses and draws than wins saw him walk the plank.
Bibey Mutombo, roped in as technical director to ”help” Sredejovic, took over as coach. Under him, Pirates went six games unbeaten — until they lost 2-1 to Sundowns on Wednesday — and have had their defence, the Achilles heel of the team in the past two-and-a-half seasons, bridged in only two matches, including Wednesday night’s match, since he took over.
This week at Loftus, Sundowns meet Moroka Swallows, another side whose supporters grudgingly accept that they are title contenders. Fewer teams in the Premier Soccer League have more traditional fans than Swallows.
They were raised on a staple diet of flowery football that made them associate themselves more with the moniker the Beautiful Birds than the side’s other nickname, the Butcher Birds. Under coach Gavin Hunt, they have become the latter.
Sundowns, too, have a tradition, spanning about two decades, of placing aesthetics over utility. Their win over Chiefs a fortnight ago, in which the 10-man Pretoria outfit held the ball for more than two minutes without their opponents touching it, must have brought back memories of former coach Stanley ”Screamer” Tshabalala’s ”Shoeshine and Piano”.
Not that their coach, Gordon Igesund, has abandoned his preference for direct football. Speaking at a media conference before the Pirates match, he said: ”We want to get the points from the games we have in hand. We have to play direct football and I am glad that the attitude of the players has been tremendous.”
Swallows go to Pretoria having beaten pacesetters Ajax Cape Town in their last outing. Another win would place them firmly among title contenders.
But the title still remains Sundowns’ to lose. Top of the log with three games in hand and the depth of talent in their squad, Patrice Motsepe’s side look sure bets to retain their title.
It will not be a stroll, though. The Swallows match is one of a battery of potentially difficult games that lie ahead this month. These include a trip to Bloemfontein Celtic and another to Wits.
Benoni Premier United, touted at the beginning of the season as the true exponents of the local style, now painfully realise that top flight football has become about the bottom line.
Ordinarily, their match against SuperSport United, which takes place in Tembisa on Sunday, would have had neutrals salivating at the prospect of adventurous, end-to-end football. Instead, it may merely mark how substance has so emphatically triumphed over style. A real pity.