‘BLESSING IN DISGUISE’

MBABANE – For Manzini Wanderers’ coach Nyanga ‘Crooks’ Hlophe, the coronavirus crisis is a blessing in disguise from a football perspective.

While acknowledging that the coronavirus is a bad omen for the entire world and must be handled with serious care as per health officials’ advice, the veteran coach highlighted that before all football activities were put on hold, the Hub giants were struggling to conjure up positive results.

He said the forced break is affording them the time to get up on their feet and starve off the relegation axe currently hovering over their heads.

Instructions

He quickly stressed though that as a team, they were adhering to the lockdown regulations and following all precautions aimed at stopping the spread of this virus. He appealed to the team’s multitude of followers to listen and follow the safety measures against the virus.  

  
“At least, when the games resume after the coronavirus challenge, we will be on the same level with the other teams in terms of fitness and that will present us with an opportunity to make things right and move the team away from the relegation zone.

The situation was getting bad for us before the games were suspended and now we have the chance to put our house in order so that when all this is over, we will be physically and mentally ready to finish the season on a high note,” he said.  Hlophe is regarded as a fitness expert in the local coaching field and he admitted that being forced to stay at home has been very frustrating for him because training is his middle name. The former Mbabane Swallows mentor revealed though that he was not sitting on the sofa waiting for the current COVID – 19 crisis to subside but doing regular training at his home.

Train

“There are a lot of ways to train under the present circumstances and our players have been given a strict training programme to follow during the current partial lockdown. It is difficult to monitor because movement is very restricted but we try to communicate through phone calls or other ways possible,” he said. Hlophe further pointed out that it was important for all people in the country to take the virus very seriously because it is a danger to human life.

“There are precautions that we must all follow to be safe and it is a duty for everyone to stay safe even if it means staying in the house. This is a life-threatening virus and we cannot take it for granted,” he warned.

The ‘Weslians’ are currently working around the clock to put their house in order and the Council of Elders have been tasked with soliciting funds to settle outstanding players’ salaries among other challenges faced by the Manzini giants. 

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