5 KEY AREAS PAPIC MUST TACKLE

Sports Editor

Kostadin Papic is a very good coach but you need to give him time as Swazis for him to implement his ideas. He can help Swazi football a lot.”
That is the honest assessment yesterday by the all-too-powerful Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman and Orlando Pirates Football Club boss, Dr Irvin ‘Iron Duke’ Khoza when Yours Truly put a call through to the man who hired the Serbian mentor back between July 2004 and November 2005 for the Soweto Buccaneers.

Nicknamed ‘Bill Clinton’ for his striking resemblance to the former American president, Papic’s ‘attack, attack, attack’ approach orchestrated and aided by the four tokoloshes in the likes of Benedict ‘Tso’ Vilakazi, Steve ‘Chippa’ Lekoelea, Joseph ‘Duku Duku’ Makhanya and Gift ‘Voom Voom’ Leremi running circles around opposition defenders saw the members of the ‘Ghost’ singing and dancing to crooner, Robert Kelly’s ‘Happy People’s melodious tune every weekend at Ellis Park Stadium.

It is beside the point that for all the enterprising football, the Soweto Buccaneers ended with the wooden mic.
A lot of water has since gone under the bridge. Another Serbian Micho Sredojevic is healing the souls of the ‘ghost’ at the moment with scintillating football and his fellow countryman, Papic finds himself with the mammoth task of turning around the fortunes of lowly Eswatini.

Can Papic be our modern day Moses out to rescue us from the football bondage and take us to the Promised Land of honey and milk? Or will he be another static in a long-as-psalms list of journey men who have come to our shores told us what we already know and left with a bagful of thousands of Emalangeni?
Sports Editor, Lwazi Dlamini believes Papic alone cannot succeed – not even Pep Guardiola would succeed under the current set-up - and holistic approach in changing our fortunes is needed if we are to help him achieve his mission.  
Here are the FIVE key areas he needs to work on if his dreams are to be fulfilled and the E60 000-monthly salary would be worth all the trouble.

DEVELOPMENT STRUCTURES

The biggest challenge facing Eswatini football is the lack of development structures or programmes. We have continuously – for donkey years – mistaken staging football junior events for development. Staging some festivals does not mean development.
The Eswatini Football Association (EFA) core mandate is to develop the sport but in that regard they would be the first to admit they have done zilch, nothing, fokol. Unless and until the EFA in particular understands what development is, our teams would not buy into the idea and the bigger loser is our football as a whole especially at senior national team level.

Sihlangu enjoyed its good days because the products of the then Umtsentse Development Programme produced the crème de la crème of that time, the Dennis ‘Yuki’ Masina’s, John ‘Shisa Junior’ Mdluli’s, Maxwell ‘King Dunga’ Zikalala’s,  Sibusiso ‘Spoko’ Dlamini’s, to mention but a few who became household names in local football and even went to ply their trade in foreign lands. Besides the recent Banele ‘Pupu’ Sikhondze and Justice Figureido signing with SA Premiership sides, Polokwane City and Maritzburg United respectively, when last did we have an international player worth the tag?
Therein lies the rub.

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