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Middendorp Reveals Reason For Chiefs Title Collapse
Former Kaizer Chiefs coach Ernst Middendorp has opened up on missing out on the league title in the last game of the 2019/20 and revealed what he thought was the reason for the club’s downfall in the bubble.
After the season was halted in March 2020 due to the corona virus outbreak, Chiefs, when it resumed in August, only won two matches out of eight matches that were left before the season ended.
Going to the last game, Chiefs needed to win against Baroka but they only drew 1-1, while Sundowns did their job, thumping Black Leopards 3-0 to win the title.
In an exclusive interview with iDiski Times, Middendorp addressed the situation, saying being away from the players and not being able to keep them 100% focussed during the break was his side’s downfall, as six out of 10 players didn’t came back as fit as expected.
“We had no influence to keep players straight into the day-to-day program on what we had before,” Middendorp told iDiski Times in edition 72, which can be read online for free.
“We had workshops twice a month with the players together to keep them in unison, and when the league was stopped in March until June, we had no control.
“We couldn’t influence everything in the right direction to put them together, and you could see already that only 14 days we prepared, we had them together, and you could see the physical side, you could see the mindset, you could see the brain was not directed in the way as we had them when the league was stopped with Covid-19 coming in March 2020.
“For me, this is the reason we were not able to go ahead and finalise the season being on top. The preparations were not at the same level as we did it before.
“Of course, it looked like it was over the line, but we should have been able to do our off-the-field stuff, communicating with our players in the morning and afternoon to keep them focused. I’ll be 100 percent sure that it would have been a clear championship at the end of the season.
“From March until the middle of June you have to give them freedom and self-responsibility [to train on their own]. Only four out of 10 are not doing what was requested from them, are not keeping themselves sharp and then what?
“You need everybody on the field, not six out of 10, but everybody who has to contribute from the start of the game until the end of the game, even if it was 98 minutes. That was for me the main reason at that time.”
However, despite missing out on the title that season, Middendorp did insist that finishing second with Kaizer Chief was one of the biggest achievements of his coaching career. He also addressed his untimely sacking from the club and shared some advice with Arthur Zwane. You can read his full interview in edition 72 of the iDiski Times newspaper by clicking below.
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