Pitso praises Arrows boss Madlala for believing in local coaches

Al Ahly coach, Pitso Mosimane has congratulated Lamontville Golden Arrows coach, Mandla Ncikazi while also applauding club owner, Mato Madlala for believing in local mentors.

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Writing on his Twitter page, the former Mamelodi Sundowns mentor said: “Chairperson, Mato Madlala since she bought the club, believed in coaches who come from Townships. The spirit of Rocky Madlala is still alive.

“Mandla Ncikazi has taken the team to where it has never been before. We are very proud of you coach.”

Abafana Bes’thende are currently second on the DStv Premiership standings, trailing leaders, Sundowns by four points although Masandawana have two games in hand.

Ncikazi, meanwhile,  has said the current international break has been a bit of a welcome distraction for for his team who need to fix a few aspects of their game but also worried about breaking their good momentum.

“The international break has two meanings to all teams, it’s either a welcome idea, giving them an opportunity to work on aspects they want to work on, and giving the players an opportunity to recover after a tight schedule,” said Ncikazi this week.

“Some players also get an opportunity to recover from injuries, or it can be a distraction if your team had some momentum of winning for playing well, they might lose that momentum.

“But in our case it is bitter sweet – a bit of both. We welcome the break because we needed to recover some players so they can be ready for the right schedule which is forthcoming.

“On the other side, you don’t want to lose the momentum, the rhythm… I am not sure whether it is welcome or not. But we have the beak and we will deal with it,” he added.

But now that they have the break anyway, Ncikazi said he will try to fix their chance conversion rate as he believes they should be scoring more than they currently do.

“There are aspects in our game that we need to improve, we are not as clinical in front of goal. For a number is scoring chances we create, I think we should be scoring more.

“I do appreciate that the team is best scorers currently with Cape Town City, we have 30 goals and that’s good for us. We would however like to decrease a bit in conceding. If we are best scorers, we would love to also be best defensively.”

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