Former Bafana striker has a passion for development

Bartlett was a top striker in his day, representing Swiss side FC Zurich, English Premier League team Charlton Athletic and Kaizer Chiefs, and he remains the second top scorer in Bafana’s history.

The former striker believes the appointment of finishing coaches by some clubs will only benefit the team if players are committed and have the desire to succeed. Bartlett says he never had the pleasure of working with one coach dedicated to scoring but welcomes all the changes that come with football as it evolves.

“You can have a finishing coach but it will only have more benefit to the club if the coach is working with younger players, not so much at senior level, because at senior level a lot of guys have picked up a lot of bad habits and it is difficult to teach them a new thing.”

The 45-year-old is passionate about development, having worked with young players as a coach at Golden Arrows and the University of Pretoria, helping Abafana Bes’thende to climb back into the Absa Premiership from the National First Division, before he was sacked by the KZN outfit.

Bartlett urges players to invest in themselves and start treating their careers as a job or business that they must put money into for it to grow.

“Players need to look at their careers as a job, there are a number of ways for you to improve as a player. You can watch videos, you can do extra training, which I think a lot of players don’t do. Again, you speak to any coach around the country, I promise you it will be less than 5%. Ask them how many of your players stay after training to do extra work – that is what having a job is all about.

“Practice makes permanent, repetition is important, the more you do it the more it becomes a habit,” Bartlett explained. “I find the reading of the game from some of our players is not great, they need focus on the positioning, get knowledge of the game and the movement on the field.”

Bartlett works as a football analyst for SuperSport, analysing local matches and Uefa Champions League games. The former Chiefs and Bloemfontein Celtic man says he has taken time off coaching for a while to focus on his TV job.

“We know obviously that there are a lot of politics involved in South African football, it is also good to be away from the game sometimes from a coaching perspective because you need to rejuvenate and come up with new ideas so that when you go back into the game it is not the same things, you can’t expect different results when you keep doing the same thing, there have been opportunities.

“But at the moment we haven’t had any success in terms of getting a job that suits both parties.”

Bartlett is happy to see his son Tyrique playing football in England with Newcastle’s under-23 side and getting his call-up to the first team earlier in the year. The proud father wants his son to write his own narrative in football and not to live off the family name.

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