Just over 20 years ago a Bloemfontein Celtic side inspired by a then unknown youngster, Ernest Chirwali, scored four against Orlando Pirates at the Orlando Stadium.
For the fans, that 4-0 defeat in 1985 was the last straw. Coach Sergio dos Santos had stayed too long. If Dos Santos were an honourable man he would hand in his resignation the next time he met his employers or he would have to account to the other ”members of the board” — the fans.
Dos Santos, who had played for Pirates’ rivals, Kaizer Chiefs, knew what was the clever thing to do if you are a coach of one of the traditional powerhouses of local football. He quit.
Amazing how history repeats itself. Another Pirates coach, Milutin Sredojevic, has walked the plank after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Celtic. As in 1985, Pirates are languishing in the relegation zone, hoping for ”someone” to make ”something” happen.
What has not changed in those 21 years — and in all the 70 years of Pirates’ existence — is that the coach is expected to win more matches than he loses.
Sredojevic, an affable character by all accounts, fell short in that respect. His record, including the pre-season Vodacom Cup, read: 11 losses, six wins and five draws.
Under him, the team did not play with the flair that continues to make grannies in Orlando East admonish their grandchildren for staying in the house when they should be in the streets celebrating another Pirates win.
His departure gives the club an opportunity to start afresh. The fixation with the contemporary, choosing to believe that the history of the local game started with the founding of the Premier Soccer League a decade ago, ignores the fact that Pirates have been in a similarly precarious position in the past. The heroics of Patson Banda against Kaizer Chiefs in the last game of the 1986 season — and not Chiefs’ benevolence, as their fans would believe — ensured that Pirates stayed in the elite league.
These days Banda sits in the TV studio as an analyst. How the fans wish he could instil that never-say-die spirit and a willingness to give all for Pirates in the present crop of players, who think it a community service to wear the black-and-white. The likes of Kaizer Motaung and Jomo Sono knew it was a privilege to don that shirt.
Unlike in the turbulent 1980s this scare for Pirates has come early on. It gives the club management and players time to come up with a plan. As it is, games in hand could translate into anything from zero to 15 points. If they get the maximum, Pirates will be in the top three. If they get none, they will be bottom of the log.
In what sounded like a genuine tribute to his departed coach, club chairperson Irvin Khoza said this week that football was, above all, a game of luck. Sredojevic’s fortune deserted him at Pirates after he had arrived from an all-conquering spell in Uganda and Ethiopia. Khoza remains convinced that the departing coach was an excellent student of the game.
But for all the platitudes, Khoza and his management team must take the blame for most of the current chaos.
Just as the coach must accept the blame for on-field deficiencies — and he has done — Khoza must admit his boardroom failures.
These include going on an impulsive buying spree without consulting the coach.
Unwanted players should be sold. Not only will it mean that these players are free to showcase their talents where they are appreciated, it would put a smile on the faces of the Pirates bookkeepers, who have to sign cheques for players they have never seen.
It will also ensure that the coach does not have to deal with an unwieldy crowd of 40-odd players, as Sredojevic had to.
Assuming that the employment of Bibey Mutombo as technical director was not a thinly disguised method of constructing Sredojevic’s dismissal, hopefully the club will in future use the technical director to appoint a coach, instead of the other way round, as happened.
In addition, the message must be drummed into the players that it is not for them to like or dislike the coach. They owe greater loyalty to the badge and to the fans than to any coach. The well-documented dressing room ill-discipline must be rooted out and some big heads of little players must be seen rolling in the streets.
Khoza has been in football administration since he was appointed secretary of the Alexandra Football Association as a 14 year old. Apart from a decade or so in business, he has occupied various leadership positions at Pirates all his adult life.
Now is the time to show what he has learnt in all those years.