Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya: Point
Were Kaizer Chiefs really good when they held Manchester United to a 1-1 draw or were the Red Devils simply playing the role of the polite guests in their first match?
Did Chiefs suddenly turn bad when Man United walloped them 4-0 a week later?
If Man United were just enjoying a kickabout in the first match, the much-repeated reason for why these tournaments are held — that they allow local players to test their skills against foreign talent — is false.
Chiefs learned nothing about themselves from the draw. If anything, it created a distorted perception about their standard and that of the local game.
Manchester United misled not only Chiefs, but the club’s supporters into believing that they were better than they really are. It is similar to racing with a toddler and then, just to make him or her feel better, coming ‘secondâ€.
The Vodacom Challenge in its present form patronises the local clubs as much as it does the fans, including those who go to support the visiting teams.
There is nothing to be made of the standard that is shown there. Overseas clubs have shown that they are really here for a safari; the matches do little more than exploit their international appeal. In short, it is a money-making exercise while they shape up for the real deal in their country and continent.
Africa, as with Asia, is seen as an opportunity to extend the already-established Man United (or Liverpool or Arsenal) brand in new markets. There is nothing wrong with that — until you pretend that there are football benefits for the locals. The clubs, fans and players are sold the lie that it is an opportunity to test their strength against the world’s best.
Unless I missed something, Chris Eagles, who scored for Manchester United against Chiefs, or Lee Martin, who scored against Pirates, can hardly be called the world’s best. They don’t even feature when their club plays Derby County.
When the teams field something that looks like a full-strength side, they hardly ever go beyond first gear and still achieve what they want. As I see it, this only demoralises local fans and players. Local fans are left even more convinced that they should support the foreign teams and not the local boys.
Those who mouth platitudes about what visits by the likes of Manchester United do for the local game mask the reality of what it does to the sport in South Africa by overstating the commercial benefits of such matches — such as tapping into the white and Indian football-supporting base to watch a local match. I have no gripe with people choosing to support whoever they wish. I just hope that their reasons are sports-based rather than on the recurrent belief that if it is European then it is essentially better.
It is every player’s dream to measure his ability against the world’s best, but fans and players must get a feeling that the competition is real and that the outcome is merited.
Too many times we celebrate ephemeral bursts of energy by lesser clubs and jump to the conclusion that the standard is higher than it really is. Remember how everybody thought that City Pillars were a really great side when they lost 5-4 to Chiefs in a cup game?
Pillars didn’t achieve anything after that match and whatever predictions were made of their greatness proved to be a false dawn. Orlando Pirates deluded themselves in this manner when they beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 in 2003 and started showboating. Last year they were given a football lesson when the north London side slotted in three first-half goals without reply and then used the second half as nothing more than a ball-sharing, training ground routine.
If it is real competition that we are looking for, then pitting our clubs against the likes of the Tunisians and the Egyptians would serve better. They dominate African football and we know that they will not bring a patronising attitude here. Local teams will know what they are up against and their wins or losses will be worth the experience.
Sello S Alcock and Matuma Letsoalo: Counterpoint
Has the idea of bringing European teams such as Manchester United to play local giants Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates in the annual Vodacom Challenge competition worked for football in South Africa? A few of our colleagues believe the competition is only for commercial gain and does nothing for football.
If the purpose was football, they argue, local organisers would bring African teams such as Al-Ahly, Asente Kototoko or Esperance to play in the competition. The reason they provide is that European teams such as Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur hardly take the game against our local teams seriously. To justify their argument, they point to past games where Chiefs drew 1-1 with United and the Red Devils’ unconvincing 1-0 win against Orlando Pirates.
We disagree. To suggest the reason Kaizer Chiefs played to a 1-1 draw and Orlando Pirates were beaten by a narrow margin was that Manchester United did not take the game seriously does not hold water. The same argument was used when Kaizer Chiefs beat United 4-3 on penalties in 2006 to win the Vodacom Champions Cup.
The reality is that for us as Africans to up our game and compete in top-flight football we first need to lose our inferiority complex and be prepared to play against the best footballers in the world.
Manchester United’s 4-0 win against Kaizer Chiefs last Saturday could have happened to any team in the world. Earlier this year United registered the same score against Arsenal to book a place in the FA Cup quarterfinals. Surely Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger learned a few lessons from that game and will probably apply different tactics when the two sides meet in future. The same goes for Kaizer Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertugral.
As with most football fanatics, we agree that the standard of our football has declined significantly since Bafana Bafana won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996 and Pirates won the African Champions Cup in 1995. The blame should be put squarely on local football authorities for failing to put in place the necessary infrastructure for the development of the sport. Perhaps our local administrators could learn a lesson from a club such as Manchester United, which has placed development at the core of its agenda.
It is, after all, a United team which had been carefully nurtured and developed by Sir Alex Ferguson (over many years) which won the Champions League in 1999. To have the opportunity to play against some of the heroes of that night in the form of Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs must have been an amazing feeling.
Most people know that one of the best ways of training champions is to hold up a mirror and display the stuff that true champions are made of — the Vodacom Challenge does just that. The visitors might have fielded second-string teams, but every one of those youngsters who walked on to our local pitches is a world-class player and is part of a nurturing process that will culminate in greatness.
The challenge now is how to ensure our players are ready to compete in the World Cup. One way to do this is to stage such showpieces, which not only remind us of how far we have to go to build a formidable team but also act as a showcase, demonstrating that we are ready to host the 2010 World Cup.
It would be suicidal to suggest South African teams should confine themselves to playing their African counterparts as a measure of their competence. Our players need to start familiarising themselves with top-flight football now. To think that playing African teams instead of European clubs will determine whether our players are ready to compete internationally is a myth and takes our football backwards. There is also the Africa Cup of Nations, played every two years.
As much as we need to play more games with our African counterparts, we also need more games against strong European teams such as Manchester United as a preparation for the World Cup. This is why we should view the Vodacom Challenge as one of the necessary platforms to expose local players to top-flight football.