Cape Town City FC celebrates after winning the Telkom Knockout final against SuperSport United.
Telkom Knockout champions Cape Town City would be forgiven if they did not have a trophy cabinet waiting in their Cape Town offices before their maiden cup final against SuperSport United recently.
After all, clubs playing their first season in the fiercely competitive Premier Soccer League merely worry about survival. Even club boss John Comitis admitted as much after City’s 2-1 triumph against seasoned campaigners United, telling reporters he hadn’t expected to win silverware so soon after joining the PSL.
Any soul with knowledge of the fate of many PSL first-timers and an understanding of the brutal battle for survival in the league would share Comitis’s views, and that his focus was on building a solid foundation for the future.
For those needing reminding of just how tough the PSL can be, take a look at Free Stars who, even after many seasons in the elite league, find themselves at the bottom of the log with just eight points from 12 games.
Even Ajax Cape Town, once the glamour boys of the city’s football, have found life in the league tough going this season, spending the better part of the early season in unfamiliar territory at the bottom of the log, before recently moving up the ranks to 11th spot.
City do not have to look far for evidence of the victims of the dreaded PSL axe. Below the internationally acclaimed Table Mountain, once-great institutions of Cape Town football are battling for survival in the lower leagues.
Santos, once league and cup champions, are now second from the bottom in the First Division log, where they have found the going very tough since they were relegated from the PSL at the end of the 2011-2012 season.
The other PSL casualties from Cape Town include Vasco da Gama and Hellenic, the once high-flying Greek gods, who in their day not only held their own against the league’s very best but also often sent them packing from their slaughterhouse of Hartleyvale.
In Gauteng, newcomers Highlands Park, who had such a good run in the First Division last season (even taking eventual PSL champions Mamelodi Sundowns into extra time in the Nedbank Cup), are fighting for their lives.
Park are second from the bottom with just nine points after 12 matches and look set to be one-season visitors to the PSL, following in the footsteps of Vasco.
But now here they are – the boys in blue. Cape Town City. A club with less than 20 PSL matches to their name. Just five months in the PSL. Toddlers really. And already winners of the R4-million Telkom Knockout Cup.
You could argue that City had it easy on their way to the final, disposing of struggling Bloemfontein Celtic, PSL newcomers Baroka and bottom-of-the-log Free State Stars. But history will remember City as Telkom Knockout Champions regardless.
Now for the league. Theirs is to match the fairytale lived by Leicester City in the English Premiership last season where, against all odds and defying history and all manner of predictions and denials, Claudio Ranieri’s men shocked the footballing world by winning one of the world’s best football leagues.
But does Eric Tinkler and his City men have what it takes to emulate what Ranieri and his Foxes achieved?
Ranieri had the benefit of a squad of hard-running, hardworking players inspired by the likes of N’Golo Kanté, Danny Drinkwater, Jamie Vardy, skipper Wes Morgan and goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel. Add to that the classy touches of recently crowned BBC African Footballer of the Year Riyad Mahrez and you have got a championship-winning team.
Just like Ranieri, Tinkler’s boys have been playing some delightfully entertaining, fast-flowing and somewhat direct football.
It could be argued that Tinkler is benefiting from the great foundation laid by Muhsin Ertugral at Mpumalanga Black Aces, whose status was bought by Comitis and gave birth to City.
Tinkler has inherited some of the key players from the Aces team that finished an impressive fourth last season. Among them is red-hot attacking midfielder and captain Lebogang Manyama.
The Alexandra-born player has undergone something of a revival this season after an out-of-sorts 2015 at Aces. During a previous stint at Ajax, he showed great promise before his star went on the wane.
Manyama takes on the opposition like an Alexandra tsotsi goes through the pockets of his unsuspecting victims, carving out scoring opportunities for teammates if he is not finding the back of the net himself.
Even in Shu-Aib Walters, Tinkler has a reliable and experienced goalkeeper, who has been hovering on the brink of a Bafana Bafana first-team slot for years. But if City are to retain their position at the summit of the log, Tinkler should work on his rearguard, which has conceded a worrying 12 goals in the same number of matches in the league.
The golden rule of winning any league is conceding less and scoring more. Tinkler should work on tightening the defence featuring experienced campaigners Vincent Kobola and Robyn Johannes if he is to emulate Ranieri.
In fact, Tinkler has proved before that he is a good coach with immense ability. At just 46 years of age, he already has Confederation of African Football Champions League experience. He is a new-generation coach, much in the mould of a not-so-young generation of coaches like Pitso Mosimane, Dan Malesela and Pep Guardiola, who are revolutionising the thankless job of coaching a football team by focusing on getting results while not losing sight of the game’s entertainment value.
Although in the hot seat at Orlando Pirates last season, his team played beautiful football, which saw the turnstiles rattle to life again as many fans, lured back by Bucs’ dishing out of the contentious kasi-flavour style, returned to the stadium.
But good football without results is pointless. And so the Pirates’ journey ended and Tinkler now finds himself with this new baby called City.
Although he has already achieved some good results and has his team playing good football, Tinkler should watch his back. The defending league champions Mamelodi Sundowns are returning home to focus on defending their league title after their African safari and Club World Cup adventure.
Tinkler and his players will probably be asking themselves: “Well, if Leicester could do it in England, why can’t we do it here?”
But, until the well-oiled Sundowns play the same number of games as his boys, perhaps it would be best for Comitis to wait before calling the carpenter to make space in the cabinet for the league trophy.