Manqoba Mngqithi (left) with Steve Komphela (Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix)
The three years that Steve Komphela spent at Kaizer Chiefs are best forgotten – for the sake of both the club and their former coach.
The three years that Steve Komphela spent at Kaizer Chiefs are best forgotten – for the sake of both the club and their former coach.
OPINION: Kaizer Chiefs remain stuck in the domestic mud
It was an awful time that started Amakhosi’s downward spiral which has now gone on for close to seven years.
But with Manqoba Mngqithi recently revealing that he had a long standing understanding with Komphela that whoever between them got a big job first, would get the other to assist them.
Their bromance started when they were doing their coaching courses, and when Komphela got the big job at Chiefs he unfortunately couldn’t get Mngqithi as he was committed to Mamelodi Sundowns at the time.
But Mngqithi has kept to the promise and brought Komphela to Masandawana when he was given the head coaching job after Pitso Mosimane’s departure.
“Coach Komphela has been my friend from a long time ago. All the coaching courses that he has done, he did them with me. We had an understanding that when I get a big job, he will assist me and when he gets a big job, I will assist him but unfortunately when he got a big job I was already at Sundowns and it was difficult to leave and go support him at Chiefs.”
This has got us thinking how great Amakhosi could have become under the mentorship of Komphela and Mngqithi, as evidenced by how smoothly they’ve taken to the big job at Sundowns. The team could hardly feel that it is under new coaching stuff.
Had they been able to work together at Naturena, there is little doubt that they would have made better progress.
It has been previously suggested that Mngqithi was the driving force behind Mosimane’s success at Sundowns.
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.