Table of contents for August 2020 in Kick Off

KICK OFF: The 2019/20 season has been one of the most bizarre periods in football history. How have you been affected by it? Bongani Zungu: COVID-19 has been crazy for the whole world and for me personally with my club when the league decided to end the season. That has been very bad, to be honest. It’s been so bad. The case with Amiens has been ongoing and I just hope the club can win the battle and everything can be good. My family [has been keeping me motivated] I got the opportunity to come home and spend time with them, of course, I’ve got to quarantine with them so they keep me in good spirits and make sure that I’ve got a strong mind, so I give all the…

KICKOFF: Where did you start in the game and were you a player before you moved to coaching? Alan Clark: My passion for the game definitely came from my family, my father in particular. He was a very good sportsman and actually played volleyball for South Africa. Like me, he was a school teacher and very passionate about sport. From a young age I was always involved in cricket and soccer, and I did quite well in both. I played for my local club Old Benonians for a number of years and I think I still hold a record there! It was a junior record in the Under-9s in what is now the Ekurhuleni league for the most goals scored in a season. I think it was something like 22.…

KICK OFF: Let’s start with your first foray into Africa when you left your native France for a West African journey… Philippe Troussier: It was in Ivory Coast where it all started for me, I became the ‘White Witchdoctor’. It was at Sol Beni, the training centre of Asec Abidjan, that I began to write my international history. To be still coaching 30 years later, after a long journey around the world with more than 12 different countries visited, I have become like a globe trotter. During this long journey, I had the great privilege of working at two World Cups [1998 and 2002], one African Cup of Nations [1998], two Asian Cup of Nations [2000 and 2004], the 2000 Olympic Games of Sydney, Copa America [1999 with guests Japan],…

Football is a humanitarian platform The uncertainty which has been wrought by the COVID-19 and GBV (gender-based violence) has opened our eyes to how football is weaved in the fabric of humanity. The game had become a channel of humanitarian assistance these days. Footballers, ex-footballers and coaches the world over had been donating cash and kind to help to assuage people’s fears and agonies caused by the pandemic. During these trying times, football had shifted from being an entertainment industry to a charitable and motivational industry. I was inspired when I heard that Doctor Khumalo and fellow former players like Lucky Lekgwathi, Thapelo Liau, Tebogo Moloi, and many others, had embarked on a programme to visit the offenders of the gender-based violence, asking them why they are doing these things…

KICK OFF: How much of a disturbance has the coronavirus pandemic been to you? Tshegofatso Mabasa: It has been a huge disturbance because I feel like the team was at a turning point and we had picked up good form to continue winning games and end the season strongly. It has been a bit of a disruption for us and what is worse is that this is something new considering that no-one in the world has ever experienced something like this before. It is a matter of adjusting to it and try to keep fit as best as possible. On a personal level I have been working out and we have been having our routine zoom sessions with the team. We cannot dispute that all our lives have been disrupted.…

BidVest Wits will no longer be in existence should their pending sale to the owner of GladAfrica Championship side Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila (TTM) be approved by the PSL. All this on the eve of their 100-year celebrations, which were set to kick-off in 2021. It sounds almost surreal that with effect from next season, there won’t be any professional football to watch at BidVest Wits with their traditional Friday night home fixture at Milpark. The smoke from the fire of speculation had already been up in the air for weeks about the sale after TTM sold their second-tier status in anticipation of funding the acquisition of a PSL franchise. TTM boss Masapa Mulaudzi then confirmed they had bought Wits, which they would then rename and then relocate to Limpopo, playing…

Death has an unwelcome way of sneaking in uninvited and it does not matter who you are, it can strike with the same devastating effect. Except with the Kaizer Chiefs team manager Ewert Nene, it was so tragic and such a great loss for football. On that fateful night in August 1976, the life of one so colourful, a man described as someone born far ahead of his time, someone who loved football passionately and indeed life itself, was senselessly killed while on a mission to recruit another player for his beloved AmaKhosi. The man who accompanied the larger-than-life Nene that cold night, Jan ‘Malombo’ Lechaba, who had also incidentally been recruited by the self-same Nene only a few weeks previously from Pretoria Callies, recalls the events that led up…

There is immense pride across Africa as the exploits of Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah proved pivotal in ending 30 years of agony for Liverpool and handing the club the Premier League title in a record-seeking season. The Senegalese-Egyptian duo are not only among the best in England but now world stars and have dominated recent the African Footballer of the Year award. Salah finishes for a third successive season as the club’s top marksman and continues to climb the table of the club’s all-time scorers. He was aiming to finish the campaign by reaching the 100-goal mark for Liverpool, equalling Kevin Keegan, fast approaching John Barnes (108) and setting his sights, over the next few years, on Michael Owen (158) and then the ultimate club legend, Kenny Dalglish (172).…

GOOD MONTH FOR… LIVERPOOL Thirty years is a long time to wait for a league title for a club of Liverpool’s stature, but they have finally broken their Premier League duck, and in some style too under manager Jurgen Klopp. BAD MONTH FOR… BIDVEST WITS FANS You pour your heart and soul into a football club and then in the blink of an eye it is gone ALSO LAST MONTH… Coach Lehlohonolo Seema makes the switch from Bloemfontein Celtic to Chippa United. Celtic appoint John Maduka, who had acted as co-coach with Seema, to lead the team. Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman Irvin Khoza says they hope to conclude the 2019/20 season by August 31, a deadline they set with FIFA. The PSL officially rubberstamp the sale of Bidvest Wits’…

Ever sat down and recalled just how difficult your upbringing was, especially when you are from a background of poverty but somehow managed to turn into success? Those are the thoughts that Willard Katsande wakes up to as he reminisces about the days when he didn’t know where his next meal would come from. The Kaizer Chiefs midfielder didn’t have it easy in his life after being born in Mutoko, Zimbabwe as the second youngest and only boy from a family of seven kids. When his father, who worked for Coca-Cola, passed away, Willard had just turned 10 and it marked the start of what would then be a dark phase in his life, which included having to fend for his next meal while staying with his sister after their…

It is now more than 20 years ago since Bevan Fransman made his Premier Soccer League debut and even as he approaches his 37th birthday, there is a steely determination to keep going. Now mong the longest serving players in the PSL, Fransman does not have any immediate retirement plans, although his contract is at an end. “For me, even before lockdown, the plan was to continue next season. I think the condition I find myself in, body wise, even fitness wise, I’m still in good shape, despite the 36 years in my legs! Before the Christmas break I didn’t feature much but after it, I came back into the team and I played eight, nine successive games without any blemishes. “I’m in the same boat with a lot of…

KICK OFF: You went straight from Real Bamako in Mali to RB Salzburg, via their feeder team Liefering. You were still a teenager then, so what was the adjustment like for you? Diadie Samassekou: It was not so easy in the beginning, but when you start playing football you plan to come to Europe and be a professional football player. I had the chance to start in a good environment in Salzburg, where they have a lot of young players. I started in the academy, because I think to have started in the first team it was too early. There I developed a lot and they gave me my time. I had to change a few things, like the food I eat, but this is not a big deal, when…