Arthur Zwane has been in football long enough to know that he had to develop a thick skin to weather the abuse thrown at him.
ARTHUR Zwane has been in football long enough to know that he had to develop a thick skin to weather the abuse thrown at him.
Zwane also knows that he’s skating on thin ice after a tough first Premiership season with Kaizer Chiefs as they ended the campaign trophyless for the eighth year in a row and without a top-three finish as they laboured to fifth place.
It was a campaign that scrutinised the appointment of Zwane as head coach as things didn’t go according to plan, with Zwane making more mistakes than victories, including guiding the team to a record 12th loss in a single league season.
As the dark clouds gathered, a handful of fans didn’t take kindly to the impending calamity. They threw missiles at the team after their penultimate game a week ago, resulting in Zwane sustaining a face injury from a police shield and raising doubts over his future. He did little to alleviate that fear during their last game of the season, as they lost 1-0 to Cape Town City at home.
“I am a believer and hard worker,” Zwane said.
“If there’s one thing that football has taught me, never be in the game if you don’t have a big heart. You need to develop a thick skin.
“I am not the first person that has been in this situation. I’ve seen coaches, maybe, struggling in their first season only to come out differently in the following season.
“It was more like a learning season for me for the fact that I was the head (coach) and making decisions with the help of the other technical team members. I had always been a supporting member before.”
While some of those decisions backfired, Zwane draws inspiration from the positives and using the shortcoming to learn for the future.
“As much as it was a learning season,” Zwane said, “it was a productive one.
“I learnt that I should have done this instead of that because that’s the only way you can learn when you are doing introspection.”
When reflecting on the season that was, Zwane continued to bemoan the injuries his regulars suffered, costly mistakes at the back and the lack of seamless adaptation from the new players. Of the new players they’ve signed this season, only Ashley du Preez, Yusuf Maart, Edmilson Dove and Christian Saile are regulars, while the rest, such as Kamohelo Mahlatsi, are fringe players.
So, with the transfer window looming large, Chiefs are expected to sign players who’ll seamlessly adapt, but how will they ensure they get the recruitment strategy spot on?
“We have identified a few individuals (who’ll fit our model at once),” Zwane said.
“We’ve managed to get some, and we are still trying to make sure that we get others. But again, it boils down to one thing: the pressure to play for a club of Chiefs’ calibre.
“That leaves one to have a lot to think about, but we’ll never stop working hard. We’ve learnt a lot from this season in terms of bringing in and releasing players.
“As much as there were negatives, there were positives that can help moving forward. It’s a case of bringing in quality.”
