Chippa United technical director/assistant coach Morgan Mammila has shown his tactical nous of coaching, revealing his masterclass counter strategy on how the Chilli Boyz tactically beat AmaZulu 2-1 at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday.
Mammila, who has divided opinions since he assumed the technical team role from administration, was on the bench for the second time this season, after he first appeared as Daine Klate’s assistant in the 1-0 loss to Mamelodi Sundowns last week Wednesday.
However, after Klate was relived of his duties as head coach, Mammila continued to be on the bench for the club against Usuthu, being named as an assistant to Siyabulela Gwambi as a head coach.
For the first time this season, Chippa scored two goals in the first half to put Usuthu to the sword and when they saw Usuthu were coming back stronger in the second half, they closed shops to see the game out and get the second league win of the season.
Mammila said he picked out a few players at AmaZulu who he knew needed to be targeted to disrupt their play.
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“I saw AmaZulu are relying on Thembela Sikhakhane to go forward, they are relying a lot on Riaan Hanamub, I know him [from Chippa],” said Mammila, who claimed to have attained a CAF D license.
“The man who helps this team to play is [Keagan] Buchanan. So I asked Siphelele Luthuli to go and stay next to Buchanan, let Makhehleni Makhaula have the ball because he only passes sideways.
“So Azola Metrose [who scored the second goal], I said to him, stay top there with Sikhakhane so that he cannot move forward.
“Thabiso Lebitso, stay there with Hanamub so that we can divide AmaZulu into three. With that, you are going to see the defenders, midfielders, you are going to see the isolated strikers and we did that.
“One thing for sure about AmaZulu, their strikers don’t know how to drop back and mark and that is where we started our movements.
“Once we started the press then we outnumbered AmaZulu in the middle and that is how we created goals.”
The victory saw Chippa move out of the bottom table to jump to 13th on the log with eight points after eight matches. Another tactical masterclass is needed when they host winless Marumo Gallants at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday at 15:00.
Chippa chairman Siviwe Mpengesi did confirm that Gwambi and Mammila will remain on the bench after the exit of Klate.
Story by Robin-Duke Madlala (@duke_robin).
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