AmaZulu have another chance to bite back against Sundowns

It currently appears to be open-season on attacking AmaZulu, with the Durban DStv Premiership outfit getting it from all sides over the last few days.

First their former communications manager Phumlani Dube went on Robert Marawa’s show on 94.7 FM and spoke of a “drinking culture” at the club.

“AmaZulu is full of drunkard people,” said Dube.

“Especially those in management and players.”

This claim was then backed up by former AmaZulu head coach Brandon Truter, currently in charge of Sekhukhune FC. Truter, ironically enough, was speaking after his team had lost 2-0 to Usuthu in the DStv Premiership on Saturday evening.

“Yes, it’s true. I am not going to lie for anybody, players came to training drunk and I had to deal with it at one stage, so whoever said it is right,” Truter told SABC Sport.

And as if this is not enough, Manchester United striker coach Benni McCarthy, another ex-AmaZulu head coach, also had a pop at Usuthu in an interview with iDiski Times this week.

McCarthy had a more generalised bash at both his former employers in the Premiership, Cape Town City and AmaZulu, indicating that his star name as Bafana Bafana’s leading goalscorer and a South African who had made it as a player overseas may have put them off.

“I was sad from disappointment because I didn’t expect when you have the kind of success that I had with the clubs that I’ve worked with, for them to then take the route of making you unemployed and firing you because they couldn’t deal with the success you were bringing to the clubs,” said McCarthy.

“But also they couldn’t deal with the popularity that was growing, what my name meant to our people. So they couldn’t deal with that. And then they felt the best way is to get someone that’s not as big as I was. And yeah, that makes me sad. 

Mediocrity

“So you must rather be mediocre, or have done nothing in your career as a player, or as an ex-player, or now as a manager. That’s what they rather want, to associate themselves with mediocracy (sic), instead of someone that wants to make the club, and put them on the level where they’ve never been before.” 

AmaZulu have a chance to refute these allegations of mediocrity and drunkenness in some way on the field of play on Wednesday, as they host champions Mamelodi Sundowns. A victory would take Ayanda Dlamini’s side totally clear of relegation trouble, and while unlikely, Masandawana have taken their foot off the domestic pedal a little of late, with just one win in four league matches since sealing the title.