One can’t help but think that apart from actually successfully wrestling the Premier Soccer League (PSL) from undisputed champion Mamelodi Sundowns next season, the only other way Kaizer Chiefs can ease the pain from missing out on the title is to bring Gavin Hunt to Naturena.
Noise about Chiefs’ interest in the former Bidvest Wits coach began circulating when Chiefs looked like champions during the course of the season.
Such news has only gained momentum now that current Chiefs coach Ernest Middendorp and his troops failed to win the league courtesy of now 10-time PSL champion Mamelodi Sundowns.
Chiefs could not have lost the race in a more cruel manner after topping the PSL standings for more than a year before being overtook on the very last day of action which saw Sundowns pip them to glory.
It would’ve been Chiefs’ first silverware in five years and a fifth league title in the PSL era.
Yes, respect is due to Middendorp who promoted Amakhosi from finishing ninth in the 2018/19 campaign to second this season. Yet the way Chiefs let the title slip is near unforgivable.
All the Soweto giants had to do was win their last game by any margin and the PSL title was won.
Hunt has always spoken about timing when speaking about interest from the league’s big teams like Chiefs and Orlando Pirates and timing at this juncture could not be more perfect.
Middendorp was given his chance to bring the glory days back to Chiefs but has unfortunately come up short. With Hunt now officially unemployed following the sale of Wits, the long-awaited wedding between one of the most successful coaches in the country and one of the most successful and biggest clubs in the country finally looks set to take place.
The Soweto giants are expected to make an announcement concerning Middendorp’s future sooner rather than later. The German mentor is understood to have a year left on his current deal.
Chiefs, Hunt match made in heaven
What’s actually more surprising is why a club of Kaizer Chiefs’ stature has never made a move to have a coach as successful as Hunt lead the Soweto giants.
Widely known as the biggest team in South Africa – with the trophies to go along with the title – it only makes sense that a club of this stature be led by a man like Gavin Hunt, who’s won a hat-trick of league titles between 2008 and 2010 with SuperSport United and being named the Coach of the
Year in each of the mentioned seasons.
Hunt is known to having the know-how in winning the league with his 2016/17 triumph with Wits making him a four-time PSL champion and putting him in an exclusive class of four-plus PSL titles with coaching greats like Gordon Igesund and Pitso Mosimane of Sundowns.
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